tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-39908036411969193142018-02-14T21:32:48.683-08:00A Small Town Homeschool"Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life." ~Charlotte MasonAlyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-89674374862601138712018-02-09T22:20:00.000-08:002018-02-14T21:32:48.869-08:00The Joy of Preschool <span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">We are blessed to be involved in a wonderful homeschool co-op with a fantastic group of people, and our new co-op semester started today. I have taught a variety of classes in homeschool co-ops in the past (i.e., drama, music appreciation, literature unit studies, geography), but this semester I am teaching two of my favorites: A preschool class, and creative writing for middle schoolers. I might write a post about the creative writing class on another day, but today I would like to talk about preschool. At the ripe old ages of seventeen, fourteen, and twelve, my own children have been beyond their preschool years for quite awhile now (sniff, sniff). If I am honest, I will tell you that I miss that age greatly and that it also happened to be my most favorite stage of homeschooling. When my kids were in their preschool years, I made Montessori-style materials to use with them at home, sang songs with them throughout each day, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">read picture books galore</span>, </span>explored sensory materials again and again, and completed hands-on art projects with them multiple times per week. It was<i> so much fun</i> and I<i> loved, loved, loved </i>it! I truly did! And I really do miss it. Preschool is just my favorite age to teach. That's why I am SO excited to teach pre-K this semester. Please indulge me for a moment by allowing me to share a little bit about my time with the tots today.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I had decided that our theme for this week and next week would be snow, so I began by reading the picture book,<i> Snow</i>, by P.D. Eastman, for story time.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif;"></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mTaqALVTqPI/Wn5_sDH8sII/AAAAAAAAAUs/Lg3k6pS4LqQ3uuySd93zA6CmsFbxZdBAQCLcBGAs/s1600/Snow%2Bbook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1378" data-original-width="961" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mTaqALVTqPI/Wn5_sDH8sII/AAAAAAAAAUs/Lg3k6pS4LqQ3uuySd93zA6CmsFbxZdBAQCLcBGAs/s320/Snow%2Bbook.jpg" width="223" /></a></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Following story time, we listened to (and sang) the song,<i> Seven Feet of Snow</i>, and we did some fun hand motions along with the music. Here is a link to the song: </span><a href="https://youtu.be/kdVBayKkg1o"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">https://youtu.be/kdVBayKkg1o</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After that, we thought of words to describe snow (i.e., wet, cold, white) and talked about fun activities that we like to do in the snow (sledding, building snowman, etc.) We then looked at pictures of some artic animals in<i> The Great Animal Search</i> book and talked about those animals.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NeNDmAEZ6ko/Wn6BfLDAlZI/AAAAAAAAAU4/O2rqD09TW78brMTy4b_2Nr-A-DzQkRO1gCLcBGAs/s1600/Animal%2BSearch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; color: #0066cc; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; orphans: 2; text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="590" data-original-width="447" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NeNDmAEZ6ko/Wn6BfLDAlZI/AAAAAAAAAU4/O2rqD09TW78brMTy4b_2Nr-A-DzQkRO1gCLcBGAs/s320/Animal%2BSearch.jpg" width="242" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">After this, we moved to table time activities. I passed out some "snow dough" that I had made at home, and the kids made snow balls and snow men with it. They also simply enjoyed the sensory aspect of squishing and squeezing it. Snow dough is similar to play dough, but the texture is somewhat different. I made it from mixing plain lotion and cornstarch together (the recipe said to use equal parts of each, but I ended up adding more cornstarch), and I added a small amount of glitter to the mixture as well.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Following the snow dough clean up, we still had some class time left, so I moved away from the snow theme, and pulled out a card game to help them learn the concept of opposites. The game is simply a large set of picture cards. I spread the cards out, and after choosing a card at random, each child scanned the other pictures to try to find the corresponding opposite. We also spent a lot of time talking about the pictures and opposite pairs. The opposites card game looks like this:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7DKaEzOhBP0/Wn6DOeciokI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/aGeKF1L2uIYaGmQ_7xTvCLP7O5lWQEfQACLcBGAs/s1600/Opposites.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="450" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7DKaEzOhBP0/Wn6DOeciokI/AAAAAAAAAVQ/aGeKF1L2uIYaGmQ_7xTvCLP7O5lWQEfQACLcBGAs/s320/Opposites.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">At the end of our game, parents were arriving to pick up their preschoolers for lunch, so the class ended. However, the other activity that I had planned for today, if time had permitted, was to sing this fun song about opposites with the kids:&nbsp; </span><a href="https://youtu.be/QrQVPUKn2vo"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">https://youtu.be/QrQVPUKn2vo</span></a></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"></span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Hence, I fully enjoyed my first day as a preschool teacher! The lesson was simple, but fun. I found myself reverting to my former speech pathologist self (even though that was a very long time ago) in that I did a whole lot of talking, as well as a lot of open-ended questions and listening, to encourage the kids to think and to develop their use of language. The little ones were so sweet, and it wasn't hard to remember why I miss that stage in my own children's lives so very much. Nevertheless, each age and stage has it's own blessings and beauty, and I have enjoyed homeschooling my children at every one of those ages and stages. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be home with my children, and it isn't something that I take for granted. Life is often stressful, and homeschooling has its difficulties, but there is <i>so much joy</i> to be found in it every single day. May we continue to experience the joy and blessings of this life that God has given us. Thank you for letting me share my day with you!</span></div><i></i><i></i><br />Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-24655206026022805722018-01-05T18:29:00.001-08:002018-02-11T15:07:08.668-08:00Renewed Hope In the New Year<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8KonqTXj-u0/WlA2rU9MJCI/AAAAAAAAAUA/kdr-tveoi5Q2ahuLdfNoXdbBXZuY8kYCgCLcBGAs/s1600/directory-466935_1920.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8KonqTXj-u0/WlA2rU9MJCI/AAAAAAAAAUA/kdr-tveoi5Q2ahuLdfNoXdbBXZuY8kYCgCLcBGAs/s320/directory-466935_1920.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b></b><b></b><i></i><i></i><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i>Psalm 3: 3-6</i></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot;; font-size: large;"><br /></span></i></b></div><span style="background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; display: inline; float: none; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style: none; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><i><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; display: inline; float: none; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style: none; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">"But you, LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; display: inline; float: none; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style: none; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">I call out to the LORD, and he answers me from his holy mountain. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; display: inline; float: none; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style: none; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; display: inline; float: none; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style: none; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;">I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side."</span></span></span></i><br /><div><i><span style="background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; display: inline; float: none; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style: none; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></i></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I cannot lie . . . the past five years have been rough. Without going into a lot of detail, some extreme dysfunction within my family of origin had left me feeling depressed, anxious, and confused. It was a relationship in which firm boundaries were necessary to keep my children and me safe, but the person involved did not want to accept the boundaries. Because of that, I found myself estranged. Deep down, I knew that I could not fix the situation, but I still felt guilty and ashamed of myself for not being able to.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I am a people pleaser at heart, and when anyone is unhappy with me, I tend to feel guilty about it, whether or not I am actually the one at fault.</span></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; display: inline; float: none; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;">My emotions have been a rollercoaster for these past five years. I have struggled with insecurity and low self-esteem. I found that rejection by someone who <i>should</i> have loved me unconditionally caused me to assume that I would sooner or later be rejected by everyone else, too. I walked through life wanting to avoid people and hang my head in shame, even though I hadn't done anything to be ashamed of. In other words, this trial completely rocked my world.<i> </i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;">On the one hand, I knew that my family was safer as a result of the estrangement, even though I had never asked to be put in such a position. However, I still ruminated over it time and time again. I fell into despair. I was inconsolable at times. I tried to take control of the situation in my mind--to think about all the ways I should have been able to <i>fix</i> it by keeping the peace and erasing all conflict. The reality was that I never could have controlled the actions of another person, but I still kept thinking about it nonetheless, and I couldn't let go of the misplaced guilt. Essentially,<i> I failed to trust God with it.</i> I tried to take control of something that He alone has control of. I failed to acknowledge that He had allowed this situation, and that He<i> allowed it for my good.</i> He knew all along that it was going to happen. He allowed it to happen in a way that provided for my family's safety, and He used it for my own sanctification.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;">As I acknowledge God's sovereignty, I am finally able to begin letting go. I still have a ways to go with that, but it is a start. I can begin trusting in His goodness and thanking Him for his kindness. <i>The Lord is lifting my head. He is sustaining me. He is helping me not to fear anymore.</i> <i>He is helping me to see that I am loved and accepted, </i>not because of<i> </i>anything that I have ever done or failed to do, but because <i>God is love</i>. And by His grace, through Christ's finished work on the cross, I am His child. As a child trusts a loving father, I can trust my Heavenly Father <i>because He loves me and He is good</i>.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot;; font-size: large;"><i><b><br /></b></i></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">So, I am beginning 2018 with renewed hope. God is sovereign over all things. His love and His good plans will never fail. Jeremiah 29: 11 says, <i>"</i><span class="text Jer-29-11" id="en-NIV-19647" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i>For I know the plans<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-19647A" data-link="(&lt;a href=&quot;#cen-NIV-19647A&quot; title=&quot;See cross-reference A&quot;&gt;A&lt;/a&gt;)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></sup> I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper<sup class="crossreference" data-cr="#cen-NIV-19647B" data-link="(&lt;a href=&quot;#cen-NIV-19647B&quot; title=&quot;See cross-reference B&quot;&gt;B&lt;/a&gt;)" style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 22px; position: relative; top: 0px; vertical-align: top;"></sup> you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." </i>I can take that to heart this year, one day at a time. I can remind myself of it often, regardless of painful life circumstances. I know there will be days when I fail to trust Him, and the old anxiety will creep back in, but I also know that He will lift my head and refocus my eyes on Him once again. He has been with me through this trial, and He will ultimately use it for my good and for His glory.<i> He is faithful, </i>and I am so thankful for that.&nbsp;</span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="text Jer-29-11" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span class="text Jer-29-11" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="text Jer-29-11" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><b>Psalm 121: 1-2</b> </i></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="text Jer-29-11" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><i>"I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth."</i></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="text Jer-29-11" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; display: inline !important; float: none; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style: none; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><br /></i></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="text Jer-29-11" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0px 0px; display: inline; float: none; font-family: &quot;arial&quot; , &quot;helvetica&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; list-style: none; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><i><br /></i></span></span></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot;; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><i><b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b></i></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><i></i><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot;;"></span><span style="color: green;"></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"></span><span style="color: black;"></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot;;"></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot;;"></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot;;"></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot;;"></span><b></b><i></i><u></u><sub></sub><sup></sup><strike></strike><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot;;"></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot;;"></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"></span><br />Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-43660307261529182702017-11-27T22:08:00.001-08:002017-11-27T22:13:30.738-08:00"Mary, Did You Know?" Official Music Video - Cover<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/juoaIDj2CSQ" width="480"></iframe><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Sadly, I have long neglected&nbsp;my blog, but I would love to share this newly released Christmas video with you. It was created and produced by a young lady who is a homeschool graduate, and all of the teens featured in the video, with the exception of one, are current homeschoolers or homeschool graduates. My oldest daughter is one of the vocalists in this, and we were super excited to see the finished product!&nbsp;<em>Mary, Did You Know?</em>&nbsp;happens to be one of my favorite Christmas songs, and this is a beautiful arrangement.&nbsp;Thank you for watching, and I&nbsp;hope you enjoy it! One of my goals for 2018 is to be able to manage my time in a way that allows me to write regularly on this blog, so I hope to be back soon. Merry Christmas, Friends!</span>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-47958353980739612992016-03-07T16:03:00.000-08:002016-03-13T21:12:22.189-07:00Trim Healthy Mama Recipe Roundup<span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Who else eats according to the <i>Trim Healthy Mama </i>plan? I began following THM<i> </i>in January, after receving the book and cookbook for Christmas. Although I haven't lost any weight, I can honestly say that I am not too concerned because I wasn't overweight to begin with. My journey with THM<i> </i>began as an attempt to reverse pre-diabetes, which was indicated by a 5.9 on my A1C blood test. I have not had this blood test repeated yet, but I can affirm that I am feeling tons better.&nbsp;I have more energy and patience, and I am noticably less irritable and anxious.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">In the&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">THM&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">world, this would be called a non-scale victory!&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">I am thankful for these benefits, which give me the motivation to keep moving toward a healthier lifestyle.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">At first, I mostly used recipes from the <i>Trim Healthy Mama Cookbook</i>, but I have begun to attempt recipes that I find on various websites, too.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">I thought that, from time to time, I would post links to THM-friendly recipes that I have tried and enjoyed.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">You will find some of these below.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Main Dishes</span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><b><i>Cilantro Lime Chicken Breast</i></b> (I served this with brown rice, making it an E meal)&nbsp;</span><br /><a href="http://anordinaryhousewife.com/cilantro-lime-chicken-breast/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">http://anordinaryhousewife.com/cilantro-lime-chicken-breast/</a><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><b><i>Bacon Ranch Chicken Casserole</i></b> (S)</span><br /><a href="http://joyfilledeats.com/bacon-ranch-chicken-casserole-thm-s/" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">http://joyfilledeats.com/bacon-ranch-chicken-casserole-thm-s/</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><b><i>Easy Stuffed Cabbage</i></b> (E)</span><br /><a href="http://simplyhealthyhome.com/the-easy-way-to-make-stuffed-cabbage"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">http://simplyhealthyhome.com/the-easy-way-to-make-stuffed-cabbage</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Soups</span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><b><i>Italian Meatball Soup</i></b> (S)</span><br /><a href="http://joyfilledeats.com/italian-meatball-soup-thm-s/"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">http://joyfilledeats.com/italian-meatball-soup-thm-s/</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><b><i>Low Carb Broccoli Cheese Soup</i></b> (S)</span><br /><a href="http://the-lowcarb-diet.com/low-carb-broccoli-cheese-soup/"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">http://the-lowcarb-diet.com/low-carb-broccoli-cheese-soup/</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Desserts</span></b><br /><b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><b><i>Peanut Butter Whip</i></b> (S)</span><br /><a href="http://rohndasue.com/2014/05/30/peanut-butter-whip-low-carb-sugar-free/"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">http://rohndasue.com/2014/05/30/peanut-butter-whip-low-carb-sugar-free/</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><b><i>Fudgy No-Bake Cookies</i></b> (S)</span><br /><a href="http://sherigraham.com/trim-healthy-mama-fudgy-no-bake-cookies-s"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">http://sherigraham.com/trim-healthy-mama-fudgy-no-bake-cookies-s</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><b><i>Snickers Shake</i></b> (S)</span><br /><a href="https://dashingdish.com/recipe/snickers-protein-shake"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">http://kellyscozykitchen.blogspot.com/2014/02/chocolate-peanut-butter-milkshake.html</span></a><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Stay tuned, as I plan to continue posting links to some favoriteTHM-friendly recipes from time to time. Thanks for reading and happy eating!</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-59642882400827662962016-03-03T06:25:00.000-08:002016-03-03T06:26:21.940-08:00When Life Gives You Twaddle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--ox9M1WuH7Q/VtfkmkdQNYI/AAAAAAAAAPY/65G2ghUaHn0/s1600/Charlotte%2BMason.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/--ox9M1WuH7Q/VtfkmkdQNYI/AAAAAAAAAPY/65G2ghUaHn0/s320/Charlotte%2BMason.JPG" width="243" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i></i></span><br /><div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i><br /></i></span></i></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><i>Twaddle.</i> It is a buzz word that homeschoolers tend to be familiar with. It is part of my everyday vocabulary, as it is for most homeschoolers who admire Charlotte Mason and follow her method of education. It is a fun word to say, but it is something that we strive to avoid. So, what exactly is twaddle? Dictionary.com defines it as <i>trivial, feeble, silly, or tedious talk or writing.</i> Charlotte Mason used the word <i>twaddle</i> when referring to dumbed down books that are mindless, senseless, or silly—books that don’t engage the mind and heart of the reader. In Charlotte’s view, education embodied a science of relations, and books that did not engage a child’s mind to help form meaningful connections were simply <i>twaddle</i>. Tedious, boring textbooks immediately come to mind. So do silly and pointless books, such as the <i>Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles</i> junior novel that I recently allowed my son to read. Although I do allow my children to read some twaddle, I mostly want them to read books that are the complete opposite—<i>living books</i>—books that are alive with passion and ideas. Books that will engage their minds and elevate their thoughts. I want my children’s daily lives to include a steady diet of living books to feast upon, and only a small amount of twaddle for dessert.<br /><br />Several years ago, at a local homeschool meeting, the speaker expanded the word <i>twaddle</i> to include the excessive or meaningless activities that we often include in our lives. Such activities are unnecessary and stressful, but we frequently feel compelled to keep doing them anyway. I didn’t give her extended definition much thought at the time, but lately it has been coming to mind more often. My life is so full and busy, just like the lives of most other moms, and I have to wonder how much of my time is wasted on twaddle. For the purposes of this post, I will consider twaddle to be <i>anything that is not worth my time at the moment and brings more stress than benefit to my family.</i> How much that my family does is truly worth our time? What could—or should—we eliminate? This is something that I used to struggle with a lot. Well, actually, who am I kidding? <i>I still struggle with it a lot.</i> It is a matter of prioritization, and prioritizing is something that is well worth learning how to do.<br /><br /><i><b>Extracurricular activities can become twaddle.</b></i> As a homeschool mom, I have always felt pressured to put my kids in a lot of extracurricular activities. I suppose my aim is to prove to the naysayers that my kids <i>are not</i> isolated, that they <i>are</i> receiving adequate social time, and that they <i>do</i> receive instruction from adults other than their parents. So, off we have gone, again and again over the years, to little league practices, martial arts classes, music lessons, dance classes, theater rehearsals, scout meetings, Awana clubs, homeschool co-ops, choir practices, etc. How much of this has really been valuable, and how much of it could be described as <i>twaddle</i>? Charlotte Mason believed that children needed downtime for exploration, play, and “masterly inactivity”. If my kids are too overscheduled, they will not have this downtime to enjoy childhood in the way that it was meant to be enjoyed. Not all extracurricular activity is twaddle, of course, and some of it is very beneficial for our children. We can ask God for wisdom to help us decide how much is too much for our family during any given season of life, and we can rest assured that it is okay to take a break when the family schedule becomes too overwhelmed. Recently, I ran into an old friend, and we conversed a bit about the challenges of parenthood. This friend reminded me that the best predictor of a well-adjusted child is for that child to live in a safe, supportive environment, and that the extras are really not important contributors to a child’s well-being. I was so thankful for that reminder! Our children need to feel <i>loved, connected, supported, and safe.</i> Those extras that we feel so compelled to provide for them, such as the music lessons, dance classes, sports teams, etc., are really just the icing on the cake for them. Fluff. <i>Twaddle</i>. There is nothing wrong with extracurricular activities; however, we can feel confident that our children would be all right without them. We don’t have to feel guilty when we must become selective about the extras in order to prevent stress within the family. Sometimes, it turns out that our children are just as happy—maybe even happier—after some of those extracurricular activities are removed. Children enjoy having downtime to play and explore! Think about that the next time you find yourself needing to eliminate some activities in order to save your family’s collective sanity. <i>Your children really will be okay</i>. <br /><br /><b><i>I can inadvertently spend my time on twaddle, even when it seems like my time is being well-spent.</i></b>&nbsp;Until about five years ago, I automatically said <i>yes</i> almost every time I was asked to volunteer for anything at church or anywhere else. I did this because I was a chronic, habitual people pleaser, and I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. Ever. I eventually found myself involved in too much, which left me feeling tired, crabby, and overwhelmed. For me, much of my involvement had become twaddle, even though my activities may not have seemed senseless, silly, or meaningless to anyone else. I was volunteering for good causes, but I found out that something good isn’t always what is <i>best for me</i>. Over the past several years, some specific life circumstances have helped me to learn, albeit slowly, that people pleasing really isn’t worth it. Now, instead of answering with an automatic yes to everything I am asked to do, I always think about it first. How do I know when to say <i>yes</i> and when to say <i>no</i>? If it is something that I think I might&nbsp;want to do, I generally ask myself three questions to help figure it out. First, I ask myself <i>why I want to do it.&nbsp;</i>I want to make sure that it isn’t based on any remnant of my people pleasing past, which tends to rear its ugly head rather unexpectedly at times. If I am able to rule that out, I then ask myself <i>if I actually have the time to commit to it</i>. I think through our family’s current schedule to determine if it would interfere with our other time commitments. I also make sure that I am continuing to protect some downtime for my family, which I feel is essential to our well-being. Finally, I ask myself <i>if the activity would be a good fit based on my family’s current goals and priorities, or if it would actually distract me from our most essential goals</i>. This is important to consider because any activity that is distracting you from your most imperative priorities is going to lead to unnecessary stress. Please note that <i>I am not saying that you shouldn’t volunteer for church ministries or other good causes</i>. As believers, it is right for us to use our time to serve others. What I <i>am</i> saying is that it is reasonable to make sure that any decision to volunteer comes from a pure motive—not from guilt or obligation—and it also makes sense to refrain from volunteering when your ministry to your family would suffer as a result. Our time is our most important investment, and we must continually evaluate whether or not we are using it wisely. I always discuss any potential time commitment—whether for me or for my children—with my husband, just as I discuss all family issues with him. He consistently gives me wise counsel and helps me to keep my focus where it needs to be. <br /><br /><b><i>Twaddle can invade our downtime at home.</i></b> Am I the only mother whose family members usually gravitate toward electronic devices (<i>major twaddle</i>) during their free time? I doubt it, so other mothers know as well as I do the importance of putting limits on electronics, for our kids and also for ourselves. When I am adequately limiting electronics, the activities that my kids will pursue on their own are so much better for them. My teenage daughter exercises, practices her dancing, or reads a book. My younger daughter plays the piano, writes stories, or reads. My son plays with Legos, shoots hoops in the driveway, or practices his martial arts. We play board games together. We have conversations together. <i>We connect as a family.</i> Of course, I’m still going to allow the video games sometimes. I’m going to let my teenage daughter check facebook and text her friends. We are going to watch silly movies together. But, we put limits on our electronics to make room for more positive pastimes.</span><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Regardless of the type of twaddle that has invaded our schedule, we can easily learn to recognize the symptoms of it: We will feel weary, overwhelmed, and grouchy because it is crowding out time that is needed for something else. In other words, it stresses us out! We can deal with this in the same way that we would deal with the literary twaddle that we are so familiar with. What would you do if you came across a series of silly, nonsensical books (think <i>Barbie</i> or something else along those lines) taking up precious space on your child’s bookshelf? Unless it was a favorite of your child or held sentimental value, <i>you would obviously get rid of the books!</i> The same principle applies to the twaddle that takes up our precious time. When we recognize it, <i>we should try to get rid of it!</i><br /><br />I realize that this use of the word <i>twaddle</i> is unconventional and is likely a bit of a stretch, but for me, it is helpful to reflect on. I can’t pretend to know what Charlotte Mason would think about it, but based on what I know about her, I believe that she would approve. I can imagine her encouraging us to remove the unnecessary excesses from our lives and to preserve the precious time that we have with our children. Time just to be together, without constantly having to hurry to the next activity. Time to pursue activities that we find to be genuinely worth our time. Time for spontaneous pursuits, rather than the pressure of too many scheduled classes and lessons. Yes, I definitely think that Charlotte Mason could appreciate that. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take a look at my schedule. I’m going to work at removing some of the twaddle. I know that, in our super busy, activity-driven lives, it will be a constant battle, but I will continue to make the effort. Every day. Little by little. It will be worth it. <i>Because our families are worth it.</i><br /><br /> <br /><br /> </span>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-26155595376733060252016-02-22T07:03:00.000-08:002016-03-09T14:42:26.099-08:00Encouraging Language Development In Young Children (Language Development Part 3)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FlvpzbKlL60/Vsd0IKcUgpI/AAAAAAAAAM4/7jQ-9PhagFY/s1600/5697684827_83b9c07eed_b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FlvpzbKlL60/Vsd0IKcUgpI/AAAAAAAAAM4/7jQ-9PhagFY/s320/5697684827_83b9c07eed_b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><i><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">This post is Part 3 in a series about early language development. Click <a href="http://smalltownhomeschool.blogspot.com/2016/02/language-development-part-1_16.html">here</a>to read Part 1, and <a href="http://smalltownhomeschool.blogspot.com/2016/02/early-childhood-language-development.html">here</a> to read Part 2.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Language is a gift from God that enables us to communicate with others, and as a result, to develop relationships with the people who come into our lives. I think we&nbsp;would all agree that language is important, so what can we do at home to actively promote the development of our children's language during early childhood? Fortunately, the answer is <i>a lot</i>! And the really good news is that doing so <i>isn’t rocket science.</i>&nbsp;In all likelihood, you are already doing a lot of this with your child:</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"></span><br /><ul style="line-height: normal;"><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">Intentionally talking to your child throughout your everyday life and activities.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Encouraging your child to communicate with you, listening attentively when she does communicate, and then repeating back and expanding upon her language.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Reading aloud is an </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">absolute must</i><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">.</span></li></ul></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">See, you already do some&nbsp;of this, right? Let’s dive right in to some specific suggestions for children between the ages of birth and four years. Keep in mind at every age and stage that your child <i>understands</i> more language than she is able to <i>produce</i>. So, even long before your child is talking, lots of language development is happening and there is plenty that you can do to encourage that progression. These activities will benefit any child</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">, whether or not that child has demonstrated a language delay.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Please note that these suggestions are not intended to replace speech and language therapy. If you child is receiving therapy, her clinician will suggest more specific activities to do at home that are designed to support current goals and objectives.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>Birth–3 Months</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></div><ul><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Do what mothers already do naturally: <i>Bond with your baby</i>. </span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Hold her</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> . . . in fact, hold her a lot.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Sing to her.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Bring your face close to hers and talk to her sweetly.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Smile at her, and imitate the sweet little noises she makes.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Click your tongue and watch as she notices it.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Exaggerate your facial expressions as you talk and sing to her.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Hold a rattle and gently shake it, watching your baby move her eyes as she hears the sound.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to music and sing as you rock your baby.</span></li><li><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Enjoy the preciousness of infancy.</i><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"> <i>It is fleeting.</i></span></li></ul><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2qpH32laTCw/VsfFMeIHzvI/AAAAAAAAANI/GzTBfj2XHEI/s1600/DSC_0427%2B%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-2qpH32laTCw/VsfFMeIHzvI/AAAAAAAAANI/GzTBfj2XHEI/s320/DSC_0427%2B%25282%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>3-6 Months</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></div><ul><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Allow your baby to look at a variety of interesting objects, including colorful toys with lots of visual detail.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Hold your baby’s hand and help her to explore different textures, like a blanket, hard and soft toys, and your face. There are plenty of textured baby toys available on the market, or use items from around the house.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Laugh with her when she laughs.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Talk to her in an animated, expressive way.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24.0000019073486px;">Use a variety of facial expressions when you talk to her.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Keep your face close to hers (about 12 inches away), making eye contact with her; vary your pitch from high to low, and your loudness from a whisper to a normal speaking voice. &nbsp;Babies quickly become good imitators of the expressions they see and the sounds that they hear.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Sing to her a lot.&nbsp;</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Read or recite nursery rhymes, and read simple board books to her.</span></li></ul><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">&nbsp;</span><b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">6-12 Months</b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></div><ul><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Actively respond to your baby’s coos, gurgles, and babbles.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Read colorful, simple books to her every day. Read slowly and expressively.&nbsp;</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Show your child pictures of animals in books and name each one as she looks at it. Then, ask her to<i>show you</i> each animal as you name it.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">&nbsp; </span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Hold your child’s hand and help her to point to the animals, if needed. Imitate animal noises as you look at the books together.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Throughout each day, talk to your child about what you are doing and what she is doing, keeping your language concrete and simple. Make eye contact with her when talking face to face.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Play simple games with your baby, such as <i>Peek-a-Boo, Pat-a-Cake</i>, and <i>So Big</i>.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Play music and sing to your child.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Get on the floor and play with your child. Talk to her as she plays, describing her toys, actions, and explorations with an expressive voice.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Around <b>9 months of age</b>, your child will begin to understand that she can communicate with a specific purpose in mind; this is called communicative intent (for example, she can make a request for something that she wants). From this time on, you can begin to adjust her environment to make intentional communication more likely. For example, give her a toy that you know she will need to help to operate (like a wind-up toy).</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">&nbsp; </span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Place desired items just a little bit out of her reach. Give her a puzzle with a missing piece. Encourage her to communicate with gestures, sounds, or words (early words probably won’t be understandable, and that’s okay). Before my children could talk, I taught them to use the American Sign Language (ASL) sign for “help” when they wanted to request my help with something.</span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6yyNL8TpnPg/VsfGgzF5sJI/AAAAAAAAANU/GmhlE-008no/s1600/DSC_0426.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6yyNL8TpnPg/VsfGgzF5sJI/AAAAAAAAANU/GmhlE-008no/s320/DSC_0426.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>12-15 Months</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></div><ul><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Continue to talk to your child a lot, and try to encourage her to talk to you, too.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><i>Read, read, read</i> to her every day. When you read simple picture books together, use them to communicate with your child and in turn, to stimulate her to communicate with you. For example, ask her to point to the pictures in books as you name them (“show me the . . . “), then encourage <i>her to try naming some of the pictures</i>.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">As you talk to your child throughout each day, name the items that your child sees (i.e., milk, table, a pet’s name, etc.) out loud, and encourage her to say the words back to you. Describe her play activities and toys out loud as she is playing.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Let her make noise with safe, household items, such as a pie tin and wooden spoon, and “make music” with these items while you sing simple songs or chant nursery rhymes.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Teach the concepts of </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">in</i><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">&nbsp;and </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">out</i><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">&nbsp;by showing her how to put items into containers, and dump them back out again. Next, ask her to do it, helping her (if needed) to put something in, then to dump it back out.</span></li></ul><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>18 Months</b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></div><ul><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Continue to read to your child every day.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Talk to her throughout your daily activities, describing what you and your child are doing, feeling, and hearing. Look at her and make eye contact with her when you are talking together.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Expand her vocabulary by encouraging her to repeat words after you say them; always try to teach new words based on the items you encounter and the experiences that you have together&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">each day.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Repeat your child’s spoken words and phrases back to her, then <i>expand on them</i>. For example, when she says “milk”, say to her, “I want some milk, please,” and encourage her to repeat it. When she says “book”, say to her “I want a book,” and encourage her to imitate you.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Praise her communicative efforts often! Make communication fun and pleasant without any pressure.</span></li></ul><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QyyEXXYH_YM/VskZFYTGP2I/AAAAAAAAAOc/z7YZKPjMpOk/s1600/DSC_0437.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QyyEXXYH_YM/VskZFYTGP2I/AAAAAAAAAOc/z7YZKPjMpOk/s320/DSC_0437.JPG" width="213" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>Two Years Old</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></div><ul><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Continue to read to her every day, choosing simple books with colorful pictures, nursery rhymes, and books with repetitive language. Eric Carle and Audrey Wood are two examples of authors who use repetitive language.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Model good speech and language when you talk to your child.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">When your child says something, expand on it by asking questions that will stimulate additional thought and language. Always think about expanding her language.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Regularly and intentionally carry on conversations with your child. Make eye contact with her. Try to listen attentively as your child talks to you, and show her that you are listening by answering, nodding, and smiling. Not only is this good for her language development, but it will also create a habit of good communication between you and your child that will benefit your relationship for life.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Help her learn to follow simple instructions and commands with one step, such as “pick up the ball” or “put your cup on the table”.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Listen to music and sing with your child, and try to encourage her to sing along with you. This is the perfect time to sing action songs, like <i>The Wheels On the Bus.</i></span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Introduce new vocabulary words to her, repeating those words often to help her learn and remember them.</span></li></ul><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pY_dJ4rdPhs/VsfIL3bvcYI/AAAAAAAAANk/8xNE2gw2om8/s1600/DSC_0431%2B%25282%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-pY_dJ4rdPhs/VsfIL3bvcYI/AAAAAAAAANk/8xNE2gw2om8/s320/DSC_0431%2B%25282%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>3-4 Years Old</b><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"></div><ul><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Continue to talk with your child often, making eye contact, actively listening, and expanding her language by asking questions. Teach her the relationships between words, objects, and ideas by talking to her about the new experiences and objects that she encounters. Talk to here a little bit beyond her understanding. Converse with her as you would with any other person.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Keep reading to your child daily, beginning to choose longer stories, which will model good language for her and also help to increase her attention span.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Read nursery rhymes and books with repetitive language, which will stimulate phonological awareness (a pre-reading skill), as well as other areas of language. Try to get your child to join in with you as you read the rhymes and repetitions. Ask her to <i>tell you stories</i> as you look at picture books together.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Encourage your child to talk to you about what she sees when you go for a walk or a ride together.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Tell your child stories (both real and pretend) and then encourage <i>her</i> to tell <i>you</i> a story about herself or someone else. If you want to go a step further with this, write her story down as she tells you, then let her illustrate it. Most likely, she will want to "read" her story again and again.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Sing with your child and listen to music together.</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">&nbsp;</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Practice giving her some two step commands to follow (i.e., “give me your brush and pick up the shoe”).</span></li><li><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Help her begin to classify common, familiar objects into categories, such as <i>things I wear</i>. You can do this with pictures cut from magazines or with real objects from around the house.</span></li></ul><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z1Q743ib_u8/VsfXbQptUGI/AAAAAAAAAN8/VSiWmc6jDSQ/s1600/DSC_0423.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-z1Q743ib_u8/VsfXbQptUGI/AAAAAAAAAN8/VSiWmc6jDSQ/s320/DSC_0423.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">There are some common themes that you probably noticed within nearly every age group in this list of suggestions. <i>Talk to your child. Name objects. Read to your child. Sing to your child. Expand her language. Make eye contact. </i>The repetition may have seemed redundant, but these concepts are so important at every stage of development that they are worth repeating. Let's talk a little bit more about a couple of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><b><i>Reading aloud.</i></b> <i>My personal belief is that there is nothing more important that you can do for your child’s language development than to read aloud to her often.</i> The good news is that most homeschool familes that I know already read a lot, so I’m almost certain that this is already a part of your daily routine. Keep it up and expand on it! Reading is so useful for stimulating speech and language that I would eventually like to write a blog post about specific ways to use books to help a variety of speech and language issues. Stay tuned!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><b>Music and singing.</b> At every age and stage, I suggested singing to your child. Why? One reason is simply because children love music, and it engages their attention in a way that little else can. Also, music benefits many areas of development, including language. It helps to improve memory, even for little babies as they learn to anticipate the variations in pitch and inflection that they will hear in a familiar song. Music helps to enhance auditory processing, and it is a tool that is often used to help a child learn just about anything. That’s why there are so many CDs marketed to help children learn everything from math facts to Bible verses. Additionally, the rhyming language in children’s songs helps to build phonological awareness, which is a critical language skill for reading. Some music styles, including classical music, promote active listening, which is important for language development. Singing helps to develop imitation, which is yet another significant language skill. On a personal note, when my middle child was a baby, music helped her to learn imitation in a memorable way. I used to sing to her about everything—whatever we happened to be doing at the moment—to the tune of <i>Fr</i></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24.0000019073486px;"><i>e</i></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;"><i>res Jacques</i>. Imagine my surprise when, at 8 months of age, she started humming <i>Freres Jacques</i> on her own, usually while I was rocking her. She then began babbling to the tune of <i>Freres Jacques.&nbsp;</i>As she grew a little older, she made up words to sing to that same tune.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"><i>True story.</i></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">It was super cute <i>and</i>it provided another avenue for her to learn imitation prior to her first&nbsp;<span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">spoken—or sung—words</span>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CK0fL5Wl4-M/VsfhbCACgyI/AAAAAAAAAOM/NLk6ektnPeU/s1600/DSCN0229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CK0fL5Wl4-M/VsfhbCACgyI/AAAAAAAAAOM/NLk6ektnPeU/s320/DSCN0229.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div style="background: white; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;">On a final note, I want to briefly discuss the use of sign language in young children. Children are often able to learn to use signs before they are able to talk, and it can be very gratifying for them to learn to sign some commonly used words early on. My children regularly used a handful of signs when they were babies, including <i>more, eat, drink, in, out,</i> and <i>help</i>. People often fear that introducing sign language in the early years will prevent a child from talking, although the reality is that studies have shown the opposite to be true. The ability to communicate by using sign language provides natural rewards that will often stimulate a desire to communicate even more. This&nbsp;<i>can</i> lead to earlier talking. The most efficient way for typically-developing, non-hearing impaired children to communicate is by talking, and they will always use this most efficient method as soon as they develop the ability to do so. So, <i>please do not be afraid to use sign language with your baby.</i> Spoken words will soon replace the signs, but it can be fun and rewarding for young children to learn some signs early on.&nbsp;</span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Do</i><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">&nbsp;use spoken words along with the signs when talking to your baby so she will learn to link the two together.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">Click </span><a href="http://signingbaby.com/dw/2015/01/16/getting-started-signing-with-your-baby/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">here</a><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%;">&nbsp;for some tips on getting started with baby sign language.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">photo credit: &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/39734516@N00/5697684827"&gt;Mother's Day&lt;/a&gt; via &lt;a href="http://photopin.com"&gt;photopin&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/"&gt;(license)&lt;/a&gt;</span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-86590633332007778052016-02-17T11:30:00.000-08:002016-02-17T13:22:38.672-08:00Home, Sweet Home<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-APWZQt76hyg/VsTkepgRbFI/AAAAAAAAAMY/XsttpehWN1c/s1600/9687494422_69c77d1659.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-APWZQt76hyg/VsTkepgRbFI/AAAAAAAAAMY/XsttpehWN1c/s320/9687494422_69c77d1659.jpg" width="234" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">I love poetry.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">As a homeschool mom who leans heavily toward the Charlotte Mason philosophy of edcucation, I have been intentional about including poetry in the lives of my children. Yesterday, my daughter and I read <i>Home, Sweet Home</i>&nbsp;by John Howard Payne. Although it is a familiar poem, I still enjoy it every time I read it. <i>Home, Sweet Home </i>feels especially encouraging to me as a homeschool mom because it confirms, in a beautiful way, how natural it is to celebrate the sweetness of home. It really is possible to experience fulfillment and contentment at home, even if the rest of the world would have us to believe otherwise. Please read and be encouraged: There is a reason that we feel drawn to do what we do, and the peace of mind that we experience from doing it is not worth anything else that the world might offer. There is no place like home.</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Home, Sweet Home&nbsp;</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there,</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Home, home, sweet, sweet home!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">There's no place like home! There's no place like home!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain;</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Oh, give me my lonely thatched cottage again!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">The birds singing gayly, that came at my call--&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Oh, give me them--and the peace of mind, dearer than all!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">Home, home, sweet, sweet, home!</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">There's no place like home! There's no place like home!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">~John Howard Payne</span><br /><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: &quot;verdana&quot; , sans-serif;">photo credit: &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/93448689@N02/9687494422"&gt;Rose Cottage at Slad&lt;/a&gt; via &lt;a href="http://photopin.com"&gt;photopin&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/"&gt;(license)&lt;/a&gt;</span></div>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-58442024395611951752016-02-16T13:23:00.000-08:002016-02-17T15:04:11.993-08:00Early Childhood Language Development (Language Development Part 2)<div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5ReWDeXjOlU/VsQDUgYSVWI/AAAAAAAAALo/kg0RV8uL40c/s1600/3537327425_d0c519ed1e.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5ReWDeXjOlU/VsQDUgYSVWI/AAAAAAAAALo/kg0RV8uL40c/s320/3537327425_d0c519ed1e.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><em>"Why isn’t my child talking yet?”</em></div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><em>“She doesn’t seem to respond to anything I say.”</em></div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><em>“I wonder if her hearing is okay, or if something else could be wrong.”</em></div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><em>“I think his language is a little behind schedule, but will he catch up eventually? Is it okay to wait and see if he grows out of it?”</em></div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">These are questions and concerns that many parents have when their children are young. Today’s blog post is going to address some of those concerns. As promised, this is a follow-up to&nbsp;<em><a href="http://smalltownhomeschool.blogspot.com/2016/02/language-development-part-1_16.html">Language Development Part 1</a></em>. In&nbsp;<em>Part 1</em>, I explained my background and introduced some linguistic terms. We will continue the discussion in this post, first learning some specifics about typical language development in the first four years of life. The information that I am providing is&nbsp;<em>not&nbsp;</em>meant to be&nbsp;<em>all inclusive,&nbsp;</em>but will give you an idea of some language-based milestones to expect as your children grow and develop. It may also help you to recognize when your children&nbsp;<em>are not&nbsp;</em>developing typically or at the same rate as their peers. Subsequently, you will find a few warning signs of a&nbsp;<em>possible</em>&nbsp;language delay or disorder, which will&nbsp;enable you to watch&nbsp;for some specific behaviors as your child grows and changes. The final section of today’s post will look briefly at the differences between a<em>&nbsp;language delay&nbsp;</em>and a&nbsp;<em>language disorder&nbsp;</em>because these phrases, which are commonly used among speech and language clinicians and other service providers, can cause confusion at times. In my next post,&nbsp;<em>Language Development Part 3</em>, we will discuss some ways that you, as parents, can stimulate and encourage your child’s language development at home. Initially, I was planning to include all of the above-mentioned information in&nbsp;<em>today's</em><em>&nbsp;</em>entry, but it became so lengthy that I decided to split it into two posts, saving the suggestions for enhancing language at home until&nbsp;<em>Part 3.&nbsp;</em>Be forewarned that this is still going to be a long blog post—sorry! &nbsp;I don’t plan for everything that I write to be so lengthy, but I couldn’t address this issue without attempting to do so in a fairly thorough manner.</div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">I compiled the material that follows from&nbsp;<em>unmarked&nbsp;</em>handouts and class notes that I kept from my grad school classes in the late 1990s (yes, I save everything). I cannot cite the sources since I do not know where the material originated from, but I do consider this information to be common knowledge within the field of speech-language pathology and readily available from many sources. In addition to the list below, there are links to more comprehensive data about developmental norms, derived from various studies, available on the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) website:&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.asha.org/slp/schools/prof-consult/norms/" href="http://www.asha.org/slp/schools/prof-consult/norms/" style="color: #00aadc;">http://www.asha.org/slp/schools/prof-consult/norms/</a>. Below, you will find the list that I compiled of&nbsp;<em>some of the&nbsp;</em>developmental language milestones that you would expect to see at different ages during early childhood. Some of these are&nbsp;<em>receptive language</em>&nbsp;milestones and others are&nbsp;<em>expressive language</em>&nbsp;milestones, but I didn’t differentiate those categories in my list&nbsp;<em>(please see Part 1 for an explanation of this).</em></div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><strong>0-3 Months</strong></div><ul style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>Makes eye contact briefly</li><li>Startles in response to loud sounds</li><li>Moves eyes toward the source of the sound</li><li>Reflexive smile</li><li>Makes random and reflexive sounds, including coos and gurgles with vowel sounds (ah, eh, uh), and single syllables</li><li>Produces different-sounding cries to communicate different needs (beginning of vocal communication)</li><li>Stops crying when picked up</li></ul><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><strong>4-6 Months</strong></div><ul style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>Actively seeks sound source, turning head toward the sound</li><li>Smiles in response to speech and feelings of pleasure</li><li>Gazes at a person’s face</li><li>Anticipates feeding upon the sight of bottle or mother</li><li>Looks in response to hearing own name</li><li>Smiles when making eye contact with someone who is smiling</li><li>Shows displeasure when an object of interest is removed</li><li>Babbling begins, directed toward self, others, and objects</li><li>“Vocal play”, including coos, chuckles, gurgles, laughs</li><li>Vocally expresses eagerness</li></ul><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><strong>7-9 Months</strong></div><ul style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>Responds to facial expressions</li><li>Attempts to imitate some gestures</li><li>Looks at some common objects when those objects are named</li><li>Looks at family members when named</li><li>Understands “no”</li><li>Uses m, n, t, d, b, p, z in babbling multiple syllables</li><li>Uses a wide variety of sound combinations and uses inflection in babbling</li><li>Imitates the intonation and speech sounds of others</li><li>Uncovers a hidden toy (the beginning of “object permanence”)</li></ul><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><strong>10-12 Months</strong></div><ul style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>Will give toy or object upon request</li><li>Understands and follows simple commands regarding body actions</li><li>Looks in the correct place for toys that are out of sight</li><li>Turns head immediately when own name is heard</li><li>Understands the meaning of “hot”</li><li>Can name&nbsp;<em>or</em>&nbsp;look for object that is out of sight</li><li>Gestures and/or vocalizes to indicate wants and needs</li><li>Learns to vary behavior based on the reactions of others (i.e., repeats a performance that is laughed at)</li><li>Vocalizes during play, vocalizes to mirror, and vocalizes loudly, with a wide variety of sounds and intonations</li><li>Uses&nbsp;<em>all</em>&nbsp;sounds during vocal play (consonants and vowels)</li><li>First words can be expected to occur between 10 and 18 months of age</li></ul><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><strong>13-18 Months</strong></div><ul style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>Follows simple one step commands</li><li>Points to object he or she wants</li><li>Begins to understand that certain objects are his own</li><li>Points to one to three body parts on command</li><li>Perceives the emotions of others</li><li>Uses 3-20 words</li><li>Says “all gone”</li><li>Asks for “more”</li><li>Names familiar objects when asked, “what’s this?”</li><li>Uses sentence-like intonation in jargon</li><li>Uses single words and may begin to use two-word phrases</li><li>Speech may be basically unintelligible with the exception of a few words</li></ul><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><strong>19 Months – 2 Years</strong></div><ul style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>Understands approximately 300 words</li><li>Actively listens as pictures are named</li><li>Points to five body parts on command</li><li>Responds to yes or no questions (may shake head instead of answering verbally)</li><li>Uses approximately 50 recognizable words</li><li>Uses names of most familiar objects</li><li>Imitates animal sounds</li><li>Closer to two years, will begin to verbalize toilet needs (may verbalize these needs before, during, or after the act)</li><li>Says own name</li><li>Uses two word phrases</li><li>Uses more words than jargon – jargon will be almost gone by two years</li><li>One third of words produced are nouns</li><li>Speaks understandably about half of the time</li></ul><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><strong>2 – 2 ½ Years</strong></div><ul style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>Understands approximately 500 words</li><li>Understands concept of “one” versus “all”</li><li>Identifies actions in pictures</li><li>Uses 200 words, and is intelligible approximately 70% of the time</li><li>Answers “where” questions and “what . . . doing” questions</li><li>Uses in/on correctly</li><li>Produced 3-4 word sentences</li><li>Plays alongside other children, but not usually&nbsp;<em>with</em>&nbsp;other children (parallel play)</li><li>Speech is approximately 70% intelligible</li></ul><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><strong>3 – 3 ½ Years</strong></div><ul style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>Understands approximately 1,000 words</li><li>Identifies hard/soft, rough/smooth</li><li>Identifies circle and square</li><li>Uses 800 words</li><li>Begins to ask questions – mainly “what” and “who” questions</li><li>Uses action words</li><li>Counts three objects, pointing to each one</li><li>Begins to use “is” at the beginning of questions</li><li>Uses “and” conjunction in speech</li><li>Uses regular plurals consistently</li><li>Uses “is”, “am”, and “are” in sentences</li><li>Produces 4 to 5 word sentences</li><li>Plays in increasingly imaginative ways</li><li>Speech is approximately 80% intelligible</li></ul><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><strong>3 ½ — 4 Years</strong></div><ul style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>Understands 1,500—2,000 words</li><li>Uses 1,000—1,500 words</li><li>Responds to commands involving three actions</li><li>Tells two events in order of sequence</li><li>Can tell stories, mixing real and unreal</li><li>Carries on detailed conversations</li><li>Continued refinement of speech intelligibility</li><li>Combines 4 to 5 words in sentences</li><li>Begins to understand turn-taking, but can be bossy toward others</li><li>Prefers to play in a group of 2-3 children</li><li>Uses complex sentences frequently</li><li>Simple past tense, present progressive “is + ing”, contractions, and pronouns used consistently</li><li>Asks “who” and “why” questions</li></ul><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">After reading all of this developmental data, let’s think back about the questions that were posed at the beginning of this blog entry. What if you aren’t sure whether or not your child’s language is progressing in an appropriate and timely manner? What if you have noticed that your baby may not be developing in certain areas as quickly as her peers are, but you aren’t sure if there is an actual problem? Some children really are “late talkers” (will be addressed later), and they don’t have&nbsp;<em>lasting</em>&nbsp;problems with communication. So, how do you know? As stated earlier, the above list is intended to be a&nbsp;<em>very general&nbsp;</em>guideline, just to give you some specific milestones to look for at each age. If you feel concerned, please compare your child with these developmental milestones. Look for patterns and write down your specific areas of concern. &nbsp;Keep a record of milestones your child&nbsp;<em>is</em>&nbsp;reaching at an age-appropriate time, as well those that are lagging behind. Also, if you are concerned about your child, please take the time to look at the more comprehensive information available on the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association website (<a data-mce-href="http://www.asha.org/slp/schools/prof-consult/norms/" href="http://www.asha.org/slp/schools/prof-consult/norms/" style="color: #00aadc;">http://www.asha.org/slp/schools/prof-consult/norms/</a>). Based on normative data, ASHA has provided a few specific warning signs of a&nbsp;<em>possible</em>&nbsp;language disorder:</div><ul style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>Doesn't smile or interact with others (birth–3 months)</li><li>Doesn't babble (4–7 months)</li><li>Makes&nbsp;few sounds (7–12 months)</li><li>Does not use gestures (e.g., waving, pointing) (7–12 months)</li><li>Doesn't understand what others say (7 months–2 years)</li><li>Says only a few words (12–18 months)</li><li>Doesn't put words together to make sentences (1½–3 years)</li><li>Has trouble playing and talking with other children (2–3 years)</li><li>Has problems with early reading and writing skills—for example, may not show an interest in books or drawing (2½–3 years)</li></ul><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><em>(Reposted from&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.asha.org/public/Early-Detection-of-Speech-Language-and-Hearing-Disorders/" href="http://www.asha.org/public/Early-Detection-of-Speech-Language-and-Hearing-Disorders/" style="color: #00aadc;">http://www.asha.org/public/Early-Detection-of-Speech-Language-and-Hearing-Disorders/</a>)</em></div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">What should you do if reading this has reinforced the concerns that you have about your child’s development? If you feel that your child may not be developing as she should, please consider seeking a speech and language evaluation sooner rather than later. Over the years, multiple studies have confirmed that an earlier start to therapy generally leads to a more positive outcome. Also, I have to stress that it is&nbsp;<em>always</em>&nbsp;a good idea to begin the process with a visit to the pediatrician. Discuss your child’s development with her doctor, making sure to bring up the specific issues that concern you. Your doctor will do a physical exam, and will most likely screen for delays in all areas of development. If the doctor feels that speech or language may be delayed, a hearing screening will be done as well. Depending on the age and needs of your child, the doctor may be able to do a quick hearing screening in the office, or a referral to an audiologist could be necessary. If you regularly take your child to the doctor for well child checks, screenings for developmental delays should be something that your doctor has already been doing regularly. However, sometimes less obvious problems may not be caught on those screenings, and&nbsp;<em>you&nbsp;</em>are the best expert on the health and well-being of your own child. Even if your child has passed the screenings at every well child check, don’t be shy about discussing your concerns with your child’s doctor or asking for a more in-depth evaluation. You may need to request a referral from your doctor for a speech and language evaluation, and that will definitely be true if you are planning to bill your health insurance. If your child is under three years old, a free evaluation from an early intervention agency should be available to you. If your child is three years of age or older, you have the option of going through your local public school system for the testing, free of charge (yes, this is available to homeschoolers), although I do understand the reasons why many homeschoolers would not choose this route. If you live close to a university with a communication disorders and sciences program, there may be a speech and language clinic on campus that will provide inexpensive services. If you are planning to go to a therapist in private practice or in a hospital system, be sure to find out ahead of time how much of the expense might be covered by your insurance. I would also suggest asking for recommendations for a speech pathologist among your friends and acquaintances ahead of time. I know that it would make me feel more comfortable to work with a therapist who was recommended by someone that I know and trust. The bottom line is that help is available, and there are usually multiple options regarding how you might decide to go about accessing it.</div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">Now that we have looked at signs of a possible language delay in young children, I think it may be important to differentiate between the terms&nbsp;<em>language delay&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em>language disorder</em>. These terms are sometimes used interchangeably among professionals who work with young children, and I know that some parents have felt confused about the differences between their meanings.&nbsp;<em>Language delay</em>&nbsp;refers to a child who is progressing through the developmental milestones of language at a slower rate than her peers; the wording implies that she will eventually “catch up”. &nbsp;A&nbsp;<em>language disorder,&nbsp;</em>however, refers to someone with a far more persistent impairment in one of more of the five domains of language (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics). Sometimes it isn’t possible to know whether a young child has a language delay or a language disorder until that child grows older. A child’s difficulties may be labeled as a language delay initially, then later renamed a language disorder if the problems persist or intensify. In order to help explain this distinction further, I am going to include a portion of a blog post from the Special Education Guide:</div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><em>How do you know when a child has a language delay versus a disorder? Unfortunately, there is not always a straightforward answer to this question. As we know, each child is unique and affected by intrinsic (i.e., biological, such as family history, birth weight, severe prenatal and/or perinatal complications) and extrinsic (i.e., environmental, including access to health care, stable residence) factors. Each child meets developmental milestones at different rates and after varying degrees of practice. However, there are widely accepted developmental norms for the acquisition of speech and language skills. When these are not attained, or attained at a slower rate than chronological age peers, questions about delay or disorder rise to the forefront.</em></div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><em>A language delay is just that — a delay in acquisition of language skills compared to one’s chronological and cognitive/intellectual age peers. A young child with a language delay may exhibit a slower onset of usage of a language skill, rate of progression through the acquisition process, sequence in which the language skills are learned, or all of the above. Generally, early language delay (late talking) may be characterized by less than 50 words at 24 months, few word combinations at 30 months, limited use of gestures and sounds to communicate, limited symbolic play, limited understanding of word meaning and inability to follow verbal instructions. Approximately 50 to 70 percent of these youngsters (i.e., late talkers) reportedly catch up to peers and demonstrate normal language development by preschool and school age. However, there is a subset of children who continue to demonstrate persistent difficulties acquiring and using language skills below chronological age expectations (by preschool or school age) that cannot be explained by other factors (e.g., low nonverbal intelligence, sensory impairments or autism spectrum disorder) and may be identified as having a specific language impairment (i.e., language disorder).</em></div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><em>The American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) defines a language disorder as&nbsp;</em><em>a significant impairment in the acquisition and use of language across modalities (e.g., speech, sign language, or both) due to deficits in comprehension and/or production across any of the five language domains (i.e., phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics)</em><em>. Language disorders are heterogeneous, and the nature and severity of disorders can vary considerably.</em><em>(Reposted from&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://www.specialeducationguide.com/blog/language-delay-versus-language-disorder/" href="http://www.specialeducationguide.com/blog/language-delay-versus-language-disorder/" style="color: #00aadc;">http://www.specialeducationguide.com/blog/language-delay-versus-language-disorder/</a>)</em></div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: merriweather, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;">I truly hope that this has been helpful. I am so excited to share ideas about enriching your child's language development at home, but this post is so lengthy that I am going to stop here for now, and save those suggestions for my next post,&nbsp;<em>Language Development Part 3.</em>Thank you for reading, and please stay tuned for&nbsp;<em>Part 3</em>, which you can expect to see very soon! Have a blessed week!</div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: merriweather, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><br /></div><span style="color: #3d596d; font-family: &quot;merriweather&quot; , &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;">photo credit: &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/24742305@N00/3537327425"&gt;Reading is fun&lt;/a&gt; via &lt;a href="http://photopin.com"&gt;photopin&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/"&gt;(license)&lt;/a&gt;</span></span></div>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-50502678195274692332016-02-16T13:18:00.006-08:002016-02-17T15:19:53.108-08:00Language Development Part 1<div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R5x9TuSsOLQ/VsQE8i7tQCI/AAAAAAAAAL4/0J6EgxXfO10/s1600/16823070012_e316457798.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-R5x9TuSsOLQ/VsQE8i7tQCI/AAAAAAAAAL4/0J6EgxXfO10/s320/16823070012_e316457798.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Once upon a time, before I was a homeschooling mama, and even before I had any babies, I was pursuing a different path. Like many of you, I went to college;&nbsp;I earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in Communication Disorders and Sciences, which was my training to become a Speech-Language Pathologist. I did not spend very much time working in that field, although I did work&nbsp;briefly in an early intervention program and also in a post-acute rehabilitation facility. I had always planned to return to work&nbsp;in my chosen field, but my plans gradually changed, and I still remain a committed homemaker. After&nbsp;I gave birth to&nbsp;my first child, I could hardly stand&nbsp;the thought of leaving&nbsp;her. However, I had just graduated with my master's degree, and I felt conflicted. A part of me thought that I would regret it&nbsp;if I didn't go to work. Also, my husband&nbsp;was encouraging&nbsp;me to get a job at that time. Part-time work seemed like a good compromise, so I&nbsp;<em>did&nbsp;</em>work a limited schedule&nbsp;during my oldest daughter's&nbsp;first couple of years&nbsp;until&nbsp;eventually, my husband and I decided that I could stay home with her full time. My plan then became&nbsp;to return to work when she started&nbsp;kindergarten, but by that time, I had two more babies and I didn't want to leave them, either. The Lord had already begun to put the desire to homeschool in my heart during my oldest child's toddler years,&nbsp;and my husband eventually became enthusiastic about that idea as well. I have loved the privilege of being home with my children, and I can honestly say that I haven't looked back with any regrets.</div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">Over the years, friends who know my background have occasionally approached me with concerns about their&nbsp;children's speech and language development. I still have an interest in the field, and&nbsp;I am always happy to discuss&nbsp;those&nbsp;issues. Consequently,&nbsp;I have decided to write a couple&nbsp;of blog posts about language development, and later, I hope to do some writing&nbsp;about speech as well.&nbsp;I would like to&nbsp;preface these posts with the disclosure&nbsp;that I am not currently a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist&nbsp;or even someone with extensive&nbsp;experience in the&nbsp;field. Rather, I am:</div><ol style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><li>A mom.</li><li>A person who was trained to be a Speech-Language Pathologist, and as such, acquired&nbsp;some knowledge about&nbsp;language development.</li><li>Someone who worked briefly as a Speech-Language Patholgist, but made the decision to give up that career years ago in order to be a stay-at-home mom.</li></ol><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">These posts are not intended to be exhaustive or&nbsp;comprehensive, but rather to encourage parents to think about how your children are developing, to seek help if you have concerns, and to think about the ways you can enhance your child's language development at home, especially during the preschool years. My desire is to provide homeschoolers with information that could&nbsp;be helpful&nbsp;to you.&nbsp;Before proceeding further, I would like to&nbsp;emphasize the benefits of seeking an evaluation from a Speech-Language Pathologist if you have concerns about your child's speech or language development. If you think that something may not be quite right, trust your instincts and have your child checked out. It would never hurt&nbsp;to do so, and it might honestly prove to be very helpful.&nbsp;I am aware of a couple of books on the market for parents wanting to help their child at home rather than seeking therapy, and I hope to review&nbsp;and write about them at a later date. At this time, I don't have enough&nbsp;knowledge about those books to be able to&nbsp;speak about whether or not they are useful. As a homeschool mom, I unequivocally&nbsp;believe that parents are the best experts regarding&nbsp;their own children. On the other hand, I also know&nbsp;that various studies have shown that early&nbsp;professional intervention for language delays generally&nbsp;leads to more positive outcomes. That is why I will encourage you to trust your instincts regarding whether or not to seek intervention, and to pursue&nbsp;an evaluation&nbsp;<em>early on&nbsp;</em>when&nbsp;those&nbsp;instincts are telling you that such help may be&nbsp;needed.&nbsp;In this post, I would like to define some terms that may be helpful if you are seeking professional&nbsp;help&nbsp;for a possible language delay.&nbsp;These terms describe the various ways that&nbsp;language is understood and explained by professionals. In my&nbsp;<em>next</em>&nbsp;blog post (<em>Language Development Part 2</em>), I will discuss&nbsp;developmental milestones, warning signs of a possible language delay, &nbsp;and ways that you can&nbsp;stimulate your child's language at home in your everday interactions and activities.</div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">One simple definition of language from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is "the system of words or signs that people use to express thoughts and feelings to each other". I would add that language is the primary way that God designed humans to communicate, and it is a system that is both&nbsp;beautiful&nbsp;and complex.&nbsp;When we are young, language allows&nbsp;us to inform our&nbsp;caregivers&nbsp;of our needs and wants. As we grow up, it enables us to develop relationships with others and is a&nbsp;means that God provided to help connect our hearts with those we love. &nbsp;When speech and language professionals&nbsp;talk about language, they broadly categorize it into two distinct&nbsp;types:&nbsp;<i>Expressive language</i><b>&nbsp;</b>and&nbsp;<i>receptive language</i>. Expressive language refers to language that is produced by a person&nbsp;in order to communicate meaning, and receptive language refers to the comprehension or understanding of meaning derived&nbsp;from the communication of others. Language development and disorders are generally discussed in terms of these two major categories.</div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">This next part is a bit&nbsp;technical, so I invite you to skip reading this paragraph entirely if you want to. Many people would&nbsp;find&nbsp;this information impractical, but if you want to familiarize yourself with some speech therapy lingo in order to prepare for the possibility of reading these words in a report or seeing them on test results (or if you happen to have an interest in linguistics), please read on! Linguists recognize five components of language:&nbsp;<i>Semantics,&nbsp;morphology,&nbsp;syntax,&nbsp;pragmatics</i>, and&nbsp;<i>phonology</i>. &nbsp;Both receptive language and expressive language are included in each of&nbsp;these areas (understanding versus production).&nbsp;<i>Semantics</i>&nbsp;involves the meaning of words and word combinations in a language. Examples&nbsp;of semantics include vocabulary and&nbsp;figurative language.&nbsp;<i>Morphology</i>&nbsp;involves&nbsp;word formation and the internal structure of words. An example of morphology is&nbsp;the use of inflectional word endings (word endings that change the meaning of a word).&nbsp;<i>Syntax</i>&nbsp;involves the grammatical arrangement of words in&nbsp;sentences. An example of syntax would be the ability to use sentence structures that vary in type and complexity.&nbsp;<i>Pragmatics</i>&nbsp;involves the social use of language. Examples of pragmatics include&nbsp;the social rules and norms that govern&nbsp;conversations, such as turn-taking and staying on topic.&nbsp;<i>Phonology</i>&nbsp;involves the&nbsp;sound system that comprises our language&nbsp;(phonology will be discussed further&nbsp;in a later post about speech disorders).&nbsp;That is a lot of information to pack&nbsp;into one little paragraph, and much more could be said about each of these five areas. If you would like to learn more about any of these, please visit The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association at www.asha.org.</div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: merriweather, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;">I must sign off for now, but please look for&nbsp;<em>Part 2</em>&nbsp;very soon, which will discuss some developmental milestones, warning signs that there&nbsp;<em>could</em>&nbsp;be a language delay, and ways to stimulate your child's language at home. I'm looking forward to it!<br /><br />To read <i>Language Development Part 2, </i>click <a href="http://smalltownhomeschool.blogspot.com/2016/02/early-childhood-language-development.html">here</a>.</div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: merriweather, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;"><br /></div><span style="color: #3d596d; font-family: &quot;merriweather&quot; , &quot;georgia&quot; , &quot;times new roman&quot; , &quot;times&quot; , serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px;">photo credit: &lt;a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/104419843@N02/16823070012"&gt;Pride - Day 321&lt;/a&gt; via &lt;a href="http://photopin.com"&gt;photopin&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/"&gt;(license)&lt;/a&gt;</span></span></div>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-18742358530406755072016-02-16T12:52:00.000-08:002016-02-16T20:38:57.782-08:00I Am Back!<div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">Hello! Welcome to my blog about home life and homeschooling!&nbsp;Maybe you are a friend of mine, or perhaps you just stumbled on to this page. Either way, I'm glad you are here. I previously blogged on this website between 2011 and 2013. Unfortunately, when life got super crazy, I completely stopped writing for a few years. Now that my kids are older and I seem to find it easier to&nbsp;pursue activities of my own choosing (sometimes, at least), I decided to try blogging again. I'm super&nbsp;excited about it, and I hope to post something once a week or so. I have many ideas floating around in my mind, and I am looking forward to sharing thoughts&nbsp;about life and homeschooling once again.</div><div style="color: #3d596d; font-family: Merriweather, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 25.5px; margin-bottom: 24px;">Today, I want to renew this new blog with a message. The message that I want to share is that&nbsp;<em>I BELIEVE IN YOU</em>. I believe in what we are doing. After homeschooling for more than ten years, I still believe that it&nbsp;is a wonderful way to educate our children.&nbsp;I believe that you, as a homeschool mom, are doing an incredible job. Even on your worst day. Even on days when you feel lonely, disappointed, tired, or overlooked. Even when you aren't seeing the fruit. Even when you feel like you are failing and are unable to believe in yourself. The job you are doing is more than worthwhile. There isn't something better that you could be doing with your time. On hard days, homeschooling can be&nbsp;both frustrating and discouraging, and I will confess that I have spent some&nbsp;time fantasizing about the career I gave up in order to do this. Those fantasies would have never been&nbsp;reality, though. The career would have had its own frustrations, and parenting would still have its frustrations, too. Someday, your kids will grow up, and when they think back about when they were&nbsp;young, they will&nbsp;appreciate all that you sacrificed for them. Most importantly, they will never doubt your love for them. More than anything else that we could ever give, our children need our love and our time, and your kids are receiving both from you in abundance. I believe that, in the grand scheme of life, homeschooling&nbsp;is&nbsp;<em>REALLY GOOD</em>&nbsp;for our kids. There are days when we doubt that. There are days when it feels overwhelming and too difficult to continue, but by God's grace and with His help, we&nbsp;<em>CAN</em>&nbsp;do this! (Phillippians 4:13) I look forward to sharing this wonderful, exciting adventure called&nbsp;homeschooling with you.&nbsp;&nbsp;Thank you for reading, and may God bless you and your families with a joy-filled week!</div>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-91555801196558310332013-01-31T19:43:00.002-08:002016-02-16T22:17:24.763-08:00Favorite Resources For Teaching The Bible To Young Children<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="heading passage-class-0" style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px; text-align: start;"><h3 style="font-size: 16px; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">Deuteronomy 6:6-9</h3><div class="txt-sm" style="font-size: 12px; text-align: center;">New International Version (NIV)</div></div><div class="passage version-NIV result-text-style-normal text-html " style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: start;"><i><span class="text Deut-6-6" id="en-NIV-5093">These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.<sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(&lt;a href=&quot;#cen-NIV-5093A&quot; title=&quot;See cross-reference A&quot;&gt;A&lt;/a&gt;)"></sup></span>&nbsp;<span class="text Deut-6-7" id="en-NIV-5094">Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.<sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(&lt;a href=&quot;#cen-NIV-5094B&quot; title=&quot;See cross-reference B&quot;&gt;B&lt;/a&gt;)"></sup></span>&nbsp;<span class="text Deut-6-8" id="en-NIV-5095">Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.<sup class="crossreference" style="font-size: 0.65em; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: top;" value="(&lt;a href=&quot;#cen-NIV-5095C&quot; title=&quot;See cross-reference C&quot;&gt;C&lt;/a&gt;)"></sup></span>&nbsp;<span class="text Deut-6-9" id="en-NIV-5096">Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.</span></i></div><br /><br />When you, as a Christian homeschooler, are asked about your primary reasons for choosing this path, how do you respond? There are many valid and wonderful reasons to commit to homeschooling, but most Christian home educators put faith and discipleship at the top of that list. My desire is to raise children who will grow to love and serve Christ. I pray daily that their hearts will remain soft and tender toward the Lord and that they will never become desensitized to the sin and evil in this world. There is nothing more important than that. Christian homeschoolers long to fulfill the command given to parents in Deuteronomy 6 and this command inspires us to continue doing what we do every day. I have certainly not been the perfect mother in this area -- or in any area for that matter -- but I always do my best. I believe that the most important way to fulfill the command of Deuteronomy 6 is do so within the context of every situation that arises in daily life, but I also believe that we must purposefully give our children a biblical foundation, beginning at a young age. I have some favorite resources to share when it comes to teaching the Bible to young children. Of course, the scriptures themselves are all that is really needed, but sometimes I find it helpful to use Bible studies, devotions, and other resources written especially for children. We have utilized various books and resources in our home, but my favorites are listed and discussed below.<br /><br /><b>1. My Favorite Resource:&nbsp;<i>Leading Little Ones To God</i></b>&nbsp;<b>by Marian M. Schoolland</b><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSmM3jvSlCApxW4mdh1dBaQPBFRlzueLp5awBC8mys68yiJvLhM" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSmM3jvSlCApxW4mdh1dBaQPBFRlzueLp5awBC8mys68yiJvLhM" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Other than the Bible itself, this one is my favorite Bible resource of all for young children. This book consists of short devotions geared toward ages 4 to 10. Each lesson includes a story, scripture, prayer, and song. The book is written in an engaging, conversational way. I like how the author didn't use a lot of fluff and frills in her book, but instead presented the basics of a life of faith in a concise, meaningful way that can be easily understood by young children. I have read this book with both of my daughters and I am currently going through it again with my son. I highly recommend it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>2. Three books by authors Susan Hunt and Richie Hunt: <i>Big Truths For Little Kids, Discovering Jesus in Gensis, </i>and <i>Discovering Jesus In Exodus</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T-JUb2dD1LM/UQskhRw_mEI/AAAAAAAAAHk/up7XyFBZSQE/s1600/060.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-T-JUb2dD1LM/UQskhRw_mEI/AAAAAAAAAHk/up7XyFBZSQE/s320/060.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I recommend these three books by Susan Hunt and Richie Hunt. All three are written from a Presbyterian perspective, but the books mostly cover basic principles and truths that would be applicable to Christians of various denominations. As someone who is not Presbyterian, the only chapter in any of the three books that I skipped over was the chapter about infant baptism in <i>Big Truths For Little Kids.</i>&nbsp;All of these books follow a fictional brother and sister named Caleb and Cassie. In <i>Big Truths For Little Kids</i>, Cassie and Caleb learn the catechism. Each chapter contains a few catechism questions and answers, an application story, discussion questions, and a scripture. <i>Discovering Jesus in Genesis </i>and <i>Discovering Jesus in Exodus </i>are a two-book series entitled Covenant Promises For Covenant Kids. In these books,&nbsp;Cassie and Caleb explore scriptural truths and learn about how every page of the Bible points to Jesus Christ. Each chapter contains a scripture, story, discussion questions, and a prayer.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>3. A Good Children's Bible</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RkcqgKKm_FA/UQsomHE1shI/AAAAAAAAAH0/b_t69rLyUh0/s1600/059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RkcqgKKm_FA/UQsomHE1shI/AAAAAAAAAH0/b_t69rLyUh0/s320/059.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Having a high-quality, well-written children's Bible has been essential in our home. My favorites are Egermeier's Bible Storybook and The Golden Children's Bible.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>4. A Bible Memorization Plan</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I believe in the power and usefulness of hiding God's Word in our hearts. We have used three different plans for doing this in our home.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT4i_a0KyJnNKMQXA6qHDHZ08aZPp-nS2V8kY7FAeJ1Gr1RLnqtiA" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT4i_a0KyJnNKMQXA6qHDHZ08aZPp-nS2V8kY7FAeJ1Gr1RLnqtiA" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My favorite resource for scripture memorization is the Bible Fact Pak, which is part of the Assemblies of God Junior Bible Quiz program. I do not belong to an Assemblies of God church, but the questions in this set are designed to teach basic Bible facts and most are not theologically-specific to the Assemblies of God. The direct quotation cards each have a scripture to memorize. The remaining cards ask a Bible fact question on one side and provide the answer on the other side. Memorizing these questions and answers, in addition to the direct quotation scriptures, gives children a very good foundation of "pegs" in their minds to add more information to as they go through life. My children have been involved in a homeschool co-op class that uses this resource, but it would be great to use exclusively at home too. The whole family would benefit from memorizing the information and scriptures on these cards.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTyZUrLQ9zufySHVjJgHsMPZCb6lr-XCMwzOb1dc2cEvrlq062Q" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTyZUrLQ9zufySHVjJgHsMPZCb6lr-XCMwzOb1dc2cEvrlq062Q" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">My children have belonged to Awana clubs during most of their childhoods. I love the choice of scriptures used in Awana and the fact that the handbooks are self-paced. However, my preference is to memorize scriptures together as a family, as opposed to having each child memorizing different scriptures in different handbooks. For this reason, I have learned to view Awana as "the icing on the cake" and an addition to the scripture memory work that we do together at home. Awana is a terrific program, though, and many families use it as their primary scripture memory program.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The other family scripture memorization plan that we have used is the card file system recommended by the Simply Charlotte Mason website. The instructions for this system are found at&nbsp;<a href="http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/">http://simplycharlottemason.com/timesavers/memorysys/</a>.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The key is to find a system that works for <i>your family </i>and then to implement that plan. There are many ways to memorize scripture; I have only shared the methods that our family has used.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>5. Betty Lukens Flannel Board Set</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQhuPuv1_w-f3F8iOYcWJ0LDzt28H5GlCGkIEXvgmFazMkS4BUBJA" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQhuPuv1_w-f3F8iOYcWJ0LDzt28H5GlCGkIEXvgmFazMkS4BUBJA" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When my children were younger (preschool and kindergarten), they loved it when I used my Betty Lukens felt set for Bible lessons. It was so fun and engaging! For around $20.00, the home worship set includes the figures and stories for 22 Bible lessons, as well as a tabletop flannel board. However, I must address the following hesitation that I have in recommending this item: Each of these figures must be cut out individually, which is both time-consuming and tedious. Although I wish that this set came with pre-cut figures, it was worth the time and effort for our family. My children have many fond memories of our flannel board Bible stories. If you are willing to spend the time cutting out the figures, this is a great and worthwhile item to have.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></div><br />Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-6729969513009091932013-01-30T20:40:00.000-08:002013-01-30T22:07:38.311-08:00Weekly Kinder Craft Idea #2<b><span style="font-size: large;">Easy Origami</span></b><br /><b><br /></b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1P22WGzd17Q/UQnvCa31sEI/AAAAAAAAAGc/BdJTtSOuJss/s1600/009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1P22WGzd17Q/UQnvCa31sEI/AAAAAAAAAGc/BdJTtSOuJss/s320/009.JPG" width="240" /></a></div><b><br /></b><b><br /></b>I am amazed by intricate origami designs, but even the most gifted origami artists surely have to start at the beginning. While your youngest children probably won't be able to sit down and immediately make a flower garden out of paper, they can begin with these very easy and fun origami projects. Below are pictures of each finished product, along with instructions or links to the instructions for these beginner origami designs. You will need square origami paper to make the dog face, sailboat, and envelope. A rectangular sheet of paper or index card is required to make the frog.<br /><br /><b>Dog Face</b><br /><b><br /></b>Below are the instructions for the very simplest of origami designs, the dog face.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.origami-club.com/easy/dogface/dogface/dog%20face.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://en.origami-club.com/easy/dogface/dogface/dog%20face.gif" width="250" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Here is our finished dog face:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-K1BvtasZN4s/UQnwJtrap5I/AAAAAAAAAGo/kMPapmYWdN8/s1600/007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-K1BvtasZN4s/UQnwJtrap5I/AAAAAAAAAGo/kMPapmYWdN8/s320/007.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Sailboat</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Next is the origami sailboat, which is also very easy and will stand up by itself when finished. The instructions for this sailboat can be found at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.fpbcrafts.com/origami/origami-sailboat.html#Pattern">http://www.fpbcrafts.com/origami/origami-sailboat.html#Pattern</a>. Below is our finished sailboat:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SD-AVa2svb0/UQnw9rfHLhI/AAAAAAAAAG0/JMAZPurlWgQ/s1600/008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SD-AVa2svb0/UQnw9rfHLhI/AAAAAAAAAG0/JMAZPurlWgQ/s320/008.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Frog</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This one is the most fun of all because the frog actually <i>hops</i>! Rectangular paper is needed to make this frog. We actually made two frogs: We used notebook paper for one frog and an index card for the other. The notebook paper frog hops along very slowly, so my children decided to call him Grandpa Frog. The index card frog ("the baby") not only hops...it <i>FLIPS</i>! How delightful! Instructions for making the frog can be found at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.origamiway.com/easy-origami-frog.shtml">http://www.origamiway.com/easy-origami-frog.shtml</a>. Below, our frogs are pictured...both Baby and Grandpa:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p5QIu1Xf9zk/UQnyYl9ANgI/AAAAAAAAAHM/ifJDR_g9v_A/s1600/005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p5QIu1Xf9zk/UQnyYl9ANgI/AAAAAAAAAHM/ifJDR_g9v_A/s320/005.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b>Envelope</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The final origami project is this cute envelope. The kids loved the idea of writing a letter and then folding it directly into an envelope shape! Directions for making this envelope are found at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Fold-an-Origami-Envelope">http://www.wikihow.com/Fold-an-Origami-Envelope</a>. Below are two envelopes that my children made:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5-NxJGY1Zjo/UQnzWOowHuI/AAAAAAAAAHU/DyK7FKni7as/s1600/006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5-NxJGY1Zjo/UQnzWOowHuI/AAAAAAAAAHU/DyK7FKni7as/s320/006.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I hope you and your children have fun with these beginning origami designs!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><br /><br />Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-35973335379749567492013-01-24T19:19:00.000-08:002013-01-25T08:07:18.086-08:00Weekly Kinder Craft Idea #1I am currently leading simple craft projects with a group of children ages four to seven each week at our homeschool co-op. I thought I would try to post one of our crafts on the blog every week (the operative word here is <i>try</i>). So far, these crafts have been both enjoyable and easy for the group, with minimal adult assistance needed. I just wanted the projects to be creative and fun for the kids, and inexpensive too.<br /><br /><b>Nighttime Snowman Picture</b><br /><b><br /></b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6IWHjSjdSzA/UQHumNPuGbI/AAAAAAAAAFo/7ykXoOkIXiE/s1600/011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6IWHjSjdSzA/UQHumNPuGbI/AAAAAAAAAFo/7ykXoOkIXiE/s320/011.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A snowman picture made by my daughter, Grace, is shown above. I already had almost everything I needed for these pictures on hand at home. I only had to buy the eyes.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><u>Materials</u>:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">white chalk</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">colored chalk or pastels</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">black or dark blue construction paper</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">cotton balls</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">googly eyes</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">brown pipe cleaner (for arms and mouth)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">small piece of orange pipe cleaner or yarn (for nose)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">odds and ends (i.e., fabric scraps, sequins, jewels, small buttons, small pom poms, snowflake stickers, etc.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">glue</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It is nice to begin this activity with a story time, using a fun picture book about snow. I used&nbsp;<i>Snowmen At Christmas</i>&nbsp;by Caralyn Buehner for inspiration because of the delightful illustrations depicting snowmen at night. I know what you're thinking: Christmas is over (and you're correct), but my kids truly enjoy reading this book any time. The kids in the co-op really liked it as well. Another great book would be <i>Snow</i>&nbsp;by P.D. Eastman, but any book about snow or snowmen would make a great intro for this little project.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kYofbQubFlc/UQHw7u3x7HI/AAAAAAAAAF4/Ygt32ajE8dQ/s1600/002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kYofbQubFlc/UQHw7u3x7HI/AAAAAAAAAF4/Ygt32ajE8dQ/s320/002.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Start with black or dark blue construction paper. Create a snowy scene on the paper with chalk. Then spread 3 cotton balls out to desired size and shape and arrange them in descending size order (largest to smallest) from bottom to top to create a snowman. Use googly eyes and yarn or pipe cleaner pieces for the eyes, nose, and mouth. Use pipe cleaners to make arms. Additional 'odds and ends' (i.e., fabric scraps, jewels, sequins, buttons, etc.) can be used as accessories to personalize your snowman. Snowflake stickers and glitter would be fun to include in the snow scene too! Use whatever you can find at home to make this picture. It's so simple and your kids will have a great time doing it! Optional: Aerosol hairspray can be sprayed lightly on these pictures to help prevent the chalk from smearing.&nbsp;</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Below is Justin's snow picture. He made a "snow cheetah" instead of a snowman just because he wanted to be different.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Sz52wwa8QbU/UQHzaA7XsMI/AAAAAAAAAGM/7vaXlgGaQaY/s1600/010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Sz52wwa8QbU/UQHzaA7XsMI/AAAAAAAAAGM/7vaXlgGaQaY/s320/010.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Have fun and enjoy spending time with your precious children!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><b><br /></b>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-42768384859624353572013-01-18T22:03:00.001-08:002013-01-19T08:35:41.268-08:00Our Version of a Homespun ChristmasI am not a creative person. I am neither crafty nor cutesy. I have tried, but creativity continues to be a struggle because it is not something that comes naturally for me. So when my sister-in-law suggested that our kids make homemade gifts for one another rather than buying presents for each other's kids at Christmas, my initial feeling was one of panic. The sister-in-law who made this suggestion happens to be one of the most creative people I know. She sews, crafts, turns various items from trash into treasure; and she is one of those people who makes it all look easy. I didn't think it would be easy at all for <i>me </i>to help my children make gifts for their five cousins.<br /><br />But after giving it some thought, I decided that I liked the idea. <i>I </i>didn't want to be the one doing all the work and I really didn't have any special talent to offer to my children. However, I <i>did</i> want my kids to have the experience of being more personally invested in the giving. After all, it's easy and convenient to pick out a toy or video game from a list, but it takes a lot of time and effort to make gifts and to try to make those gifts special. I knew it would require my children to put more of themselves into the process and that it would be something memorable and worthwhile.<br /><br />When I told my children, they immediately hopped on board with enthusiasm! They were truly excited about it and they kept that excitement throughout the gift-making process. We made very simple gifts; gifts that my kids could mostly make by themselves. We made gifts that didn't require any special or hard-to-learn skills (I don't possess any such skills). Homemade gifts <i>did</i> require a greater measure of time and effort, and it was a bit difficult to get it all finished in time. But it isn't an experience that I would trade. My children and I spent quality time together planning and making these projects, and I truly believe that the cousins were as thrilled as ever to receive gifts that were obviously so full of love and planning. Again, our gifts were simple, but in the end we made quite a variety of items, including beaded bracelets, homemade finger paints, slime, paper bag coloring books, multicolored shapes made from recycled crayons, framed drawings, clothespin dolls, pencil holders, and edible gifts too! My children received wonderful gifts from their cousins in return that they will cherish for years to come.<br /><br />I hope that this was the beginning of an annual tradition. Maybe the kids and I will even learn some new skills &nbsp;before next Christmas that we can use. My daughters are currently learning to sew, so who knows what we might be able to accomplish by next year? I wish that I would have taken pictures of &nbsp;every gift that we made, but I didn't. However, I did take a few pictures, which are shown below.<br /><br />These first two pictures are the clothespin dolls that my daughter, Grace, made, along with the American Girl box that she decorated to store them in. The first two clothespin dolls are supposed to be Grace and her cousin, Kaitlyn. The next pair is supposed to be the American Girl characters, Molly and Emily, followed by two more American Girls, Kit and Ruthie.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tKiCk5yyeiM/UPoxnG8S8LI/AAAAAAAAAEg/cDN8KwAVuGU/s1600/005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tKiCk5yyeiM/UPoxnG8S8LI/AAAAAAAAAEg/cDN8KwAVuGU/s320/005.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EHmgqxuiVeA/UPoxvdOr9aI/AAAAAAAAAEo/S2BeyVY7k5s/s1600/007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EHmgqxuiVeA/UPoxvdOr9aI/AAAAAAAAAEo/S2BeyVY7k5s/s320/007.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Next is a picture of my two nephews and one of my nieces with a cartoon picture of Fred Bird, the St. Louis Cardinals mascot, drawn by my daughter, Anna.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xT40A477Vzg/UPoy23FJbVI/AAAAAAAAAE0/2-Nt3_slf48/s1600/097.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xT40A477Vzg/UPoy23FJbVI/AAAAAAAAAE0/2-Nt3_slf48/s320/097.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />My seven-year-old son, Justin, decorated a colorful martial arts box for one of his cousins.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2s60dkmMLt8/UPoy2-iQ06I/AAAAAAAAAE4/pbTSzX5tKwo/s1600/010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2s60dkmMLt8/UPoy2-iQ06I/AAAAAAAAAE4/pbTSzX5tKwo/s320/010.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Two of my children worked together to make pencil holders out of recycled glass jars, twine, and small seashells.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lUDLdMe0iE8/UPozmi1r1oI/AAAAAAAAAFM/675nd11sI_k/s1600/101a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lUDLdMe0iE8/UPozmi1r1oI/AAAAAAAAAFM/675nd11sI_k/s320/101a.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />We used broken crayons to make multicolored star and wreath shapes.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VngZpCylPfA/UPozp6_oZOI/AAAAAAAAAFU/SPiOy7JsiV0/s1600/171.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VngZpCylPfA/UPozp6_oZOI/AAAAAAAAAFU/SPiOy7JsiV0/s320/171.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-75566471124475921652012-10-06T16:15:00.000-07:002012-10-06T16:15:39.115-07:00My Son Is ReadingI wanted to write a quick post to share that my second grade son is finally catching on to phonics and reading. I mean, he's <i>really, truly </i>catching on! He has been a bit of a late bloomer with his reading abilities and I was beginning to feel uncertain about his lack of progress. I have many types of phonics and reading curricula to choose from in our home, mostly because one of my other children struggled to read early on as well. I have utilized all of these with Justin over the past few years: AlphaPhonics, Hooked on Phonics, portions of Happy Phonics, Explode the Code workbooks, various readers, and homemade flash cards. None of them seemed to work and he made limited gains in his reading abilities.<br /><br />This year, I bought a new book entitled&nbsp;<i>At Last! A Reading Method For Every Child!</i>&nbsp;by Mary &nbsp;Pecci. Guess what? It is <i>working</i>! I am so happy to see my son's progress and to report that he no longer dreads learning to read. In fact, he is enjoying it!&nbsp;At some point, I would like to write a review of <i>At Last! A Reading Method For Every Child!</i>&nbsp;For now, it will suffice to say that although it is not nearly as user-friendly as it could be, I really do like it because it <i>works</i>! For me, it has been worth the extra effort because we have been successful using it.<br /><br />That said, I'm not sure if it is only the change in curriculum that has made a difference for my son. In fact, I really don't think that is the case. Instead, I believe that our success also stems from my son's growth in development and maturity over the past several months. I have found that the old saying about 'leading a horse to water' really is true in many facets of life, homeschooling included. In other words, my son needed to develop the readiness<i> </i>learn to read <i>in his own time</i>. Prior to this year, he really wasn't ready; thus, we saw limited progress. Now that he is developmentally able to meet the challenge, he is absolutely taking off! And isn't that part of the great satisfaction of homeschooling? I <i>love</i>&nbsp;the fact that we can work according to the timetable that works best for our individual families and not the timetable imposed on students in public schools. What a blessing that is!<br /><br />I hope you are having a great and fruitful school year. God bless you!Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-3057498017327021042012-08-03T07:39:00.000-07:002012-08-07T19:24:15.667-07:00Gearing Up For SchoolIt's that time again. Time to plan, time to organize, and time to prepare for the beginning of school. In years past I have found myself more prepared than I am this year. I do not have any lesson plans ready, for example, and I am still waffling on the issue of scheduling. But I <i>have</i> made my curriculum choices and I feel really good about those choices. I am using more traditional curricula than I usually do, but I don't plan to always use that curricula in a typical way. In other words, I plan to make it work for me and to make changes when necessary rather than become a slave to it. I will always consider myself to be a Charlotte Mason homeschooler because that is where my heart is, but I felt that it was best for our family to do some things differently this year. Aren't you thankful that we have the freedom to do that? Below is a list of subjects and curriculum choices for each of my children. As you will see, it is a very eclectic mix.<br /><b><br /></b><b>For My Seventh Grader</b><br />The Holy Bible<br />Life of Fred Math<br />Bob Jones Grammar and Composition<br />Christian Light Education Reading (I will use living books for additional literature studies)<br />Mystery of History Volume I<br />Getting Started With Latin<br />*Apologia What We Believe Series (worldview studies) <br />*Apologia General Science<br />*Art<br />*P.E.<br /><br /><b>For My Third Grader</b><br />The Holy Bible<br />Math-U-See<br />A Beka Language Arts<br />Handwriting Without Tears Cursive<br />A Beka Spelling<br />Christian Light Education Reading<br />Mystery of History Volume I<br />*Apologia What We Believe Series (worldview studies) <br />*Apologia Astronomy<br />*Art<br />*P.E.<br /><br /><b>For My Second Grader</b><br />The Holy Bible<br />Math-U-See<br />At Last! A Reading Method For Every Child! By Mary Pecci<br />Super Spelling by Mary Pecci<br />A Reason For Handwriting<br />Mystery of History Volume I<br />*Gospel House Publishing &nbsp;Junior Bible Quiz Fact Pack <br />*Apologia Astronomy<br />*Art<br />*P.E.<br /><br />*Denotes subjects that will be completed under the direction of a weekly homeschool co-op.<br /><br />I am excited about the year ahead and I am trying not to feel the least bit overwhelmed as I gear up for it. Even though homeschooling is a monumental undertaking, it is also a privilege that should be readily embraced. I am looking forward with anticipation to the start of school. May God bless us with his wisdom and peace as we plan, prepare, and get organized. 2012-2013 is going to be a terrific school year!Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-42691328547461080772012-07-16T08:14:00.000-07:002016-02-16T22:18:08.955-08:00A Charlotte Mason Music Class<br /><span style="background-color: white;">Last year I started a small, Charlotte Mason-inspired homeschool co-op. I played the role of music teacher within the group and we sought to included the aspects of music appreciation that were endorsed by Charlotte Mason in her writings. These included composer study, hymn study, and folk music. Following is a synopsis of the music classes that were held in our Charlotte Mason co-op.</span><br /><br />Composer study was allotted for the first portion of each class. One composer was studied per semester, and our composers last year were Bach and Mozart. We began each class session with a narration time, where the children were asked to tell me something that they remembered from previous weeks about the composer. After that, new information was presented, which involved reading aloud from one of Opal Wheeler’s composer biographies. These books are very engaging and informative -- perfect to use for composer study. I also conducted some additional research about the composers so that I could present interesting facts about their lives that may not have been included in the Opal Wheeler books. In addition, I used the corresponding Opal Wheeler CDs and played the short selections that corresponded with each chapter in the book.<br /><br />I then played one or more musical selections by our featured composer that lasted a maximum of ten minutes. During this time of listening, the children were given something to do with their hands. For the younger class, (K- 3rd) this usually involved a coloring page. The Opal Wheeler CD-ROMs contain coloring pages that correspond with the chapters in her books. Also, I found some free coloring pages of musical instruments and musical symbols online. The older group (4th - 8th) were given notebooking pages to draw and write on. Sometimes the children simply used plain paper to draw or write on while listening to the music. After the listening time was over, we talked about the music a bit. I asked the children to tell me the instruments that they heard in each piece, whether the tempo was fast or slow, what the music made them think of, and how it made them feel. This created an opportunity to use group discussion to strengthen the connection with the music.<br /><br />We studied hymns in our Charlotte Mason music class, mostly focusing on hymns with lyrics that were written by Fanny Crosby. Prior to the beginning of the school year, I read a biography about Fanny Crosby in preparation for the class. I presented a fact or two about Fanny’s life and held up her picture each week. We learned a different hymn by Fanny Crosby every month. For the younger class, I came up with hand motions for the some of the hymns to help keep their attention. Also, I used a jazzed-up version of “To God Be the Glory” a couple of times that the younger group really enjoyed.<br /><br />For the folk song portion of the class, we learned American patriotic songs and American folk music because many homeschooled children may not have had as much exposure to these as their public school counterparts. It seemed like a good opportunity to present them. During the first semester, we sang traditional songs, such as “America the Beautiful” and “America”. During the second semester, we sang the more ‘fun’ variety of American songs, including “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”, “Turkey In the Straw”, and “The Erie Canal”.<br /><br />For the final portion of class, I took a few minutes to introduce or review a musical concept. These topics were diverse and included the families of instruments in the orchestra; music notes, signs, and symbols; note values and rhythm; melody, harmony, and learning to sing in a round; posture and breathing while singing; and some basic musical terms.<br /><br />I love the richness that a Charlotte Mason education brings to the homeschool experience. I appreciate her view of art and music as integral parts of education. I must admit, though, that I have found it difficult at times to include them in my home school regularly. They tend to get buried underneath the subjects that we traditionally view as core. That is why the Charlotte Mason co-op was so valuable for my children and for me. Although this may sound terrible, the co-op literally forced me to include composer study and picture study consistently in my children’s education. Every time I hear one of my children make a reference to Mozart or to Bach, I know that the classes were worthwhile. When we are singing a hymn in church and one of my kids excitedly says, “That’s a Fanny Crosby song,” &nbsp;I can’t help but smile.&nbsp;<span style="background-color: white;">Something that was very gratifying for me about teaching the music class was the way that many of the families continued the learning at home. Almost every week, a child would come to class almost bursting to tell me something they had learned about Bach or Mozart from a book they read at home or a documentary their family watched together. This made the class especially meaningful for me.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">I truly hope that you will &nbsp;find a way to gently incorporate the arts into your children‘s education, whether that occurs in a group situation or among your family at home. I can tell you that it is so worth it. Our children need not only to be instructed; they also need to feel </span><i style="background-color: white;">inspired</i><span style="background-color: white;">.</span><br /><div><br /></div>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-49480637886770467162012-07-02T23:36:00.000-07:002012-07-04T10:13:09.486-07:00My Family<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TSnGbi-Kxxc/T_R5koPz7ZI/AAAAAAAAADA/2eEbXbkmTRs/s1600/Family+Picture.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="258" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TSnGbi-Kxxc/T_R5koPz7ZI/AAAAAAAAADA/2eEbXbkmTRs/s320/Family+Picture.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-41999026619741466352012-07-02T23:22:00.000-07:002012-07-04T07:02:48.371-07:00Frugality<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tonight I colored my hair, which got me to thinking about the frugal steps that homeschooling families often take in order to survive on a single household income. Maybe it seems unusual for hair color to bring frugality to mind, but up until a few years ago, I made regular trips to a salon for professional highlights. Then I changed my strategy and decided to color my hair at home in order to save money. That was only one of many small steps that I have taken over the years in an attempt to live more frugally. Below is a list of some of the money saving choices that our family has made at various times. It is by no means an exhaustive list; these are simply some of the items that came to mind.</span><br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I color my own hair at home as opposed to professional highlights. </b>(see above)</span></li></ul><div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>My husband and I do not have smart phones, iphones, or any other type of fancy cell phone.</b> We each have a ten dollar tracfone and we buy prepaid cards to obtain minutes for them. We only use our cell phones when we are away from home or in an emergency situation. These bare, basic phones don't have any extras, such as the ability to take pictures or a keypad for easy texting, but they still perform the basic function of allowing us to make a call when we need to. Leaving off all the bells and whistles saves us an awful lot of money, which is a worthwhile trade-off in my opinion.</span></li></ul></div><div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>We do not have any television stations whatsoever. </b>Yes, I'm completely serious -- please don't faint! We don't have cable or satellite T.V. We don't even have a 'rabbit ear' antenna on top of our T.V. We only keep our television -- the old, boxy kind that isn't digital and doesn't have a flat screen -- to watch occasional movies together or to play the Wii. Our T.V. technically 'bit the dust'<span style="background-color: white;">&nbsp;several years ago and we realized that we didn't miss it. I'm so glad we didn't get a new one. I don't have to worry about the content that my children watch&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: white;"><i>and</i></b><span style="background-color: white;"> we don't have to </span><span style="background-color: white;">pay</span><span style="background-color: white;">&nbsp;for cable or satellite T.V.&nbsp;</span></span></li></ul></div><div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>We rarely eat out and I always utilize a meal plan.</b> I must admit that I have struggled a bit with the meal plan over the years. I have read and followed books about meal planning. At times I have prepared freezer meals. For awhile I used an online meal planning service called e-mealz. Right now I am making my own weekly meal plans from a list that I compiled of about twenty-five of our family's favorite recipes. I have never found a system that is absolutely perfect, but I know that I spend far less money at the grocery store when I use some type of &nbsp;meal plan. And we only eat out when we have planned ahead to eat out, which also saves a lot of money.</span></li></ul></div><div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I shop at a discount grocery store (Aldi).</b> I find that I spend far less when I shop at Aldi than I do using coupons at a regular grocery store. I will admit, though, that I don't buy everything at Aldi. I am quite a stickler about only purchasing food products that are made with natural ingredients for my children to eat. Also, I am on a strict gluten-free diet. Thus, some of our food is purchased at a health food store. But I still save a lot by purchasing all that I can at Aldi.</span></li></ul></div><div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I prepare my meals with natural ingredients and avoid convenience foods.</b> Not only is this healthier, but avoiding prepared foods saves money too.</span></li></ul></div><div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>My children don't have birthday parties every year.</b>&nbsp;This may seem like a small thing, but I thought it might be worth mentioning. We celebrate each of our children's birthdays every year within our own family with a special dinner, cake, and gifts. However, our children take turns having a birthday party that includes their friends as invited guests. Parties cost money and my children's birthdays happen close together. It would be a financial strain to pay for each of them to have a birthday party every single year.&nbsp;</span></li></ul><div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I avoid Wal-Mart like the plague. </b>There was a time when I found myself making too many trips to Wal-Mart. I was frequently going in to buy a few items, but it seemed that I couldn't get back out the door without spending at least fifty dollars. Wal-Mart is the type of store that intentionally makes it difficult to run in and get only one or two things. For me, better planning of my necessary Wal-Mart trips helped to ensure that I frequented the discount giant no more than once a month. This plan turned out to be much healthier for my pocketbook.</span></li></ul></div><ul><li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I practice contentment.</b>&nbsp;This is the most effective and important frugal tip that I could ever learn. It is easy to compare ourselves with others, but those comparisons always&nbsp;rob us of true happiness. In our family, we don't drive new cars or have all the latest items. We don't live in a big or fancy house. And guess what? We are <i style="font-weight: bold;">happy</i>. &nbsp;Praying for and practicing contentment is essential for saving money and also for experiencing real joy.<span style="background-color: white;">&nbsp;</span></span></li></ul><div><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These are some of the ways that we have attempted to live more frugally. As my husband prepares for a job change and our family faces a possible move, I am looking for new ways to cut corners.&nbsp;How have you been successful at saving money for your family? I would love to know your tips!</span></div></div>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-37143314889262468292012-06-22T07:45:00.001-07:002012-06-22T07:45:13.164-07:00Peace and QuietThis week has been so quiet at my house. My children are enrolled in a music camp for the week. For&nbsp;<i>three days in a row </i>I had no children at home. That is a first for me. As a homeschool mom, I often don't realize that I need a break. Then, when the respite comes, I relish it because I <i>truly did</i> <i>need it</i>. That's how it has been for me this week. I have enjoyed the peace and quiet in my home. I drank my coffee and read my book in silence. I organized closets without interruption. I ran multiple errands <i>alone</i>. Wow. &nbsp;And God has used this peaceful week at home to refresh my spirit in ways that I didn't even know were needed.<br /><br />I am so thankful for the opportunity to have my children at home and I honestly wouldn't have it any other way. The almost constant noise and activity in our home is a testimony to the fullness of life represented here. I would be sad and lonely if my life was always quiet. But this week has reminded me to seek out the quiet moments more often. I need to take the time to be refreshed and rejuvenated -- to allow God to 'fill up my tank', so to speak-- in order to be a more patient and kind mother during the busyness of daily life.<br /><br /><i>Dear Lord,&nbsp;</i><i style="background-color: white;">Thank you for loving me and for calling me to be your child. Thank you for my children and for always providing for our family. Help us to love You more. Help us to glorify You in our daily lives. Help us to make time for quiet moments and to seek YOU during those moments. I know that You long to fill us with your presence and love. Help me to remember that and not to become distracted by my daily activities. In Jesus' Name, Amen.</i><br /><i style="background-color: white;"><br /></i><br /><i style="background-color: white;">Psalm 46:10a:&nbsp;</i><span style="background-color: white;"><i>He says, “Be still, and know that I am God...."</i></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><i>(NIV)</i></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;"><i><br /></i></span><br /><span style="background-color: white;">How are you taking time to rejuvenate this summer?</span><br /><i style="background-color: white;"><br /></i><br /><i style="background-color: white;"><br /></i>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-54750499024798461952012-06-20T09:54:00.003-07:002012-07-03T08:14:44.024-07:00Homeschool Co-ops<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I have had a rather tepid attitude toward homeschool co-ops over the years. I love some aspects of co<b>-</b>ops even while I dislike other parts. For five of my seven years as a homeschool mom, I did not ultilize a co-op. For two years, I did. In theory, I love the idea of a homeschool co-op. The social interaction, the group learning without jeopardizing flexibility, the fellowship with other moms…sounds perfect. In larger areas, there are even specialized groups for homeschoolers, such as fine arts co-ops. I love that idea! On the surface, it all seems like a win-win situation. &nbsp;As with everything in life, however, there are some pitfalls. &nbsp;In my rural area, there are not a lot of co-op opportunities for homeschoolers, but I have tried the ones that are available. Although co-oops have their positives and their negatives, we are excited that we are once again joining a homeschool co-op for the upcoming school year.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">A few years ago, my children and I spent a year as part of the only co-op in our area, which consisted of two churches of the same denomination that had joined together for cooperative classes. &nbsp;Although we did not attend either of those churches, they allowed our family to join. Overall it was a great year with many valuable learning experiences. The best parts were that my children made some new friends that they got to see regularly, they were able to participate in group activities that they would not have been able to be involved with otherwise (i.e., PE, group discussions with their peers), and they gained the experience of accepting instruction from an adult other than me. The negative aspects involved the issues that commonly occur among group situations with children: Someone feels left out or is picked on, some children don't get along, etc. It is important to remember that the same issues that affect kids when they are herded together in school will also occur in a homeschool co-op setting, albeit on a smaller scale usually. The silver lining is that many caring mothers are present to help the children deal with such issues as they occur. The timing wasn't right for our family to continue with the co-op, so we left after only one year. For the upcoming year, we are enrolling in this co-op once again and we are excited about it. This particular co-op includes a mothers support group, which I am definitely looking forward to.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Last year, I started a new co-op in my area for only one year. &nbsp;I approached the women in a Charlotte Mason support group that I attended about beginning a co-op based on Charlotte’s educational methods. The women were interested and the Living and Learning Homeschool Co-op began with just two classes. I was the director and I taught the music class; a woman from the support group who is also a good friend taught the art class. It was a great year and I think everyone enjoyed it, but we decided not to continue it for next year. My friend who taught the art class is relocating to another state, so we needed a new art teacher. Also, I needed to lessen my responsibilities within the co-op due to a possible job change for my husband as well as some health issues in our family. &nbsp;The other women in the group were unable to&nbsp;take on those responsibilities due to their own family circumstances (i.e., new babies, too many other commitments, etc.), so the co-op has ended. God may have plans to begin it again in the future, but it isn’t meant to be for the present time.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Although it isn’t a co-op, I want to mention that my children were involved in a homeschool drama troupe for the past two years. It was a wonderful group that brought so many rich experiences into their lives!&nbsp; This drama class was honestly the best group learning experience that my children have ever had. Although I wish the ‘Encore Players’ group could continue forever, it appears that it may not. The teacher and founder has decided to enroll her children in a Christian school full-time. At this writing, the future of the Encore Players is uncertain.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">It is amazing to see how God has always provided for the needs of my family, including my children's need for social interaction. At various times, God has used cooperative learning experiences as part of his divine provision and I am thankful that such opportunities are available to homeschoolers. Although it hasn’t always been perfect, my family has gained much from the co-op experience. &nbsp;</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Have you been a member of a homeschool co-op? Has your experience been a positive one? Please comment below…I would love to read your story!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-39892612110712128532012-05-08T06:48:00.000-07:002016-02-16T22:19:01.610-08:00Rowing and BeyondI absolutely love the <em>Five In A Row</em> curriculum by Jane Claire Lambert. I used volumes one and two with each of my daughters when they were in kindergarten and first grade. If you are unfamiliar with <em>Five In A Row</em>, it is a miniature unit study for&nbsp;children&nbsp;ages 5-8 that&nbsp;uses high-quality children's literature as&nbsp;the starting point for lessons in social studies, science, language arts, fine arts, and math. At the time I was using it, I worried that <em>Five In A Row</em> didn't provide enough educational "meat" for my daughters, even though I used separate curricula for reading, language arts, and math. Looking back, however, I realize that <em>Five In A Row</em> lacked nothing academically. In actuality, it was&nbsp;the catalyst that encouraged a love for literature in my daughters. Also, the interactive lessons stimulated a desire to learn that no other curriculum&nbsp;has replicated in my children. <br /><br />During my oldest daughter's fifth grade year, she liked almost nothing&nbsp;about school; every academic subject seemed to be a battleground. At the end of the year, I asked her to tell me something she had liked about school in the past so that I could use that information to help make positive changes for the following school year. She thought about it carefully before replying that she had loved school when we used <em>Five In A Row</em>. Her comment&nbsp;was poignant because I hold those memories of reading and learning together with her very close to my heart. Not only did she learn through our <em>Five In A Row</em> lessons, but&nbsp;we&nbsp;created memories together in the process that will never be forgotten.&nbsp;Based on my daughter's comment, I purchased the third volume of <em>Beyond Five In A Row</em> to use with her in sixth grade. <em>Beyond Five In A Row</em> was written by Jane Claire Lambert's daugher, Becky Jane Lambert, and is recommended for ages 8-12. I did not use <em>Beyond Five In A Row</em> as a core curriculum, but it provided stimulating supplemental lessons&nbsp;that&nbsp;gave me the precious gift of quality time with my daughter. There have been aspects of sixth grade that my oldest has not liked or have proven difficult, but <em>Beyond Five In A Row</em> lessons were always something that she looked forward to. That alone makes this curriculum worth its weight in gold in my estimation. The literature that we used in <em>Beyond Five In A Row Volume 3</em> included&nbsp;<em>The Saturdays</em> and <em>A Cricket In Times Square</em>, as well as biographies about Neil Armstrong and Marie Curie. These quality books provided starting points for lessons on&nbsp;various topics from world history, science, fine arts, geography, language arts, and issues of human relationships. <br /><br />I attended a homeschool conference this spring and Jane Claire Lambert&nbsp;happened to be a featured speaker at the convention. I was happy to have the opportunity to stop by her table and tell her how much her books have meant to me; not only from an academic perspective, but for fostering&nbsp;family relationships, which is really what homeschooling is all about.<br /><br />I created a chart&nbsp;for each book used in <em>Beyond Five In A Row Volume 3</em> to help me stay organized with the lessons I chose. Although I made these for my personal use,&nbsp;they are available below to use in your homeschool.<br /><br />To access the chart for <em>The Childhood of Famous Americans Neil Armstrong</em>:<br />&nbsp;<a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5NDM85dUVI0OVhKX2ZqNWptclU">https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5NDM85dUVI0OVhKX2ZqNWptclU</a><br /><br />To access the chart for <em>A Cricket In Times Square</em>:<br /><a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5NDM85dUVI0NkkxZWdjR2dIQU0">https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5NDM85dUVI0NkkxZWdjR2dIQU0</a><br /><br />To access the chart for <em>Marie Curie and the Discovery of Radium</em>:<br /><a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5NDM85dUVI0YmY2b1B2a1lybDQ">https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5NDM85dUVI0YmY2b1B2a1lybDQ</a><br /><br />To access the chart for <em>The Saturdays</em>:<br /><span lang="EN"><a href="https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5NDM85dUVI0YkY0Q19aRDNwd1k">https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5NDM85dUVI0YkY0Q19aRDNwd1k</a></span><br /><br />To purchase <i>Five In A Row </i>or <i>Beyond Five In A Row</i>, please click the link below:<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EsVmoc3tFlw/T_RKRIymZaI/AAAAAAAAAC0/QwX8_096Nfs/s1600/Five+In+A+Row.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EsVmoc3tFlw/T_RKRIymZaI/AAAAAAAAAC0/QwX8_096Nfs/s1600/Five+In+A+Row.jpg" /></a></div><br />http://www.exodusbooks.com/details.aspx?id=5848&amp;referral=xmj3rp76<br /><br />To look at literature lists for each volume of <i>Five In A Row</i>&nbsp;and <i>Beyond Five In A Row</i>, go to&nbsp;http://www.exodusbooks.com/category.aspx?id=7771&amp;referral=xmj3rp76.<br /><b><br /></b>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-74883956298919911582011-08-09T23:08:00.000-07:002011-08-10T18:28:18.582-07:00Charlotte Mason Homeschool Co-op Becomes A RealityIt seems that while the summer drifted by in intense heat waves, I never wrote a single blog post! I have little excuse aside from the typical busyness of&nbsp; motherhood. My daughters and I spent the first half of summer involved in a community theater project, which we enjoyed immensely. There were additional activities and commitments as well, including our church’s annual music camp, VBS, swim lessons, and a couple of very brief getaways. I never did get around to my plan of helping my kids get ahead in math. Somehow, I truly <em>needed</em> the break from academic work that summertime provided. Often I think that I require breaks more than the kids do and I have truly enjoyed the summer respite. As I prepare to get back into the swing of our school schedule, I wanted to write about something I have been working on this summer. Something that I feel <em>particularly</em> excited about. <br /><br />My previous blog entry was about my dream of a Charlotte Mason inspired homeschool co-op. I am delighted to report that such a co-op, the “Living and Learning Homeschool Co-op”, will become a reality this fall! After writing my blog entry in May, a friend and I discussed offering a small co-op to our local Charlotte Mason support group. There seemed to be sufficient interest from within the group, so we decided to forge ahead with the plan. We are starting out small; around thirty children in kindergarten through eighth grades will be participating this fall. We are offering music, art, and monthly nature field trips. Music class will consist of classical music/composer study, hymns, patriotic songs, and basic music theory concepts. During the Fall 2011 semester, the children will study Bach as well as hymns with lyrics written by Fanny Crosby. Art class will consist of artist/picture study as well as hands-on techniques. The artist for the Fall 2011 semester will be Claude Monet. My friend is teaching the art classes and I am teaching the music classes and directing the co-op as well. I am especially excited about the monthly field trips because the lady organizing them is passionate about nature and has so many wonderful ideas for our group. She is even bringing in some experts from outside our area to teach the children about nature journaling! <br /><br />I really wanted to share this happy news! My children are so looking forward to making new friends and to learning more about art and music via the gentle methods of Charlotte Mason. I am covering this effort with prayer and I am hopeful that the co-op will be a blessing to all who participate. As the director, I fear that my administrative abilities may be weak. At the same time, I acknowledge that God has placed me in a leadership position so that I might depend upon Him solely as my source of strength. I prayerfully anticipate the beginning of the new school year and the start of “Living and Learning Homeschool Co-op” with hope and expectation. I pray that you are also looking forward to the year ahead and that you experience God’s blessings as you nurture your children.Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-45575186337308427062011-05-25T21:39:00.000-07:002016-02-16T22:19:38.283-08:00A Charlotte Mason Homeschool Co-opI have been contemplating homeschool co-ops quite a bit lately. A <i>Classical Conversations</i> program is starting up in my area and I am thinking and praying about enrolling my children in it. However, it is very pricey. Also, <i>Classical Conversations</i> is obviously a classical program and I prefer using CM methods to educate my children. I have a slight fear that a strictly classical program would overwhelm them. For a year my children and I were involved in a traditional homeschool co-op. It had its pros and cons and someday I might write a blog post about the pros and cons of co-oping in general. For now, it will suffice to say that I have been weighing those pros and cons a lot lately and dreaming about my “ideal” homeschool co-op. Specifically, as a Charlotte Mason enthusiast, I am envisioning a co-op that incorporates her wisdom and unique educational philosophy.<br /><br />My ideal Charlotte Mason co-op would meet for 2-4 hours weekly. Depending on the class or topic, each lesson or class would range from 20 minutes to one hour. Rather than tackling the core subjects, I would leave those classes at home because we all have different preferences for curriculum and methods, as well as children with unique learning styles. I believe that a mother is the perfect person to make those decisions for her children and to be the primary teacher for core subjects. Instead, I would like a co-op to address those “extras” that make a CM education so rich. To clarify, I know that Charlotte Mason did not consider these said topics to be extras at all and she fully included them in her core curriculum. I am labeling them as extras because so many of us have a difficult time including them in our daily lessons. We are able to finish math, spelling, language arts, reading, history, and science without much of a struggle, but when it comes to picture study, composer study, hymn study, or nature study, we often fall short. In order to avoid the exclusion of those wonderful subjects, many CM-focused mothers would benefit from implementing them within a supportive, like-minded group.<br /><br />All moms involved in a CM co-op should concur in at least one respect: All should be attempting to include some of Charlotte Mason’s ideas in the education of their children. Perhaps each mom should be required to attend a Charlotte Mason support group or to verify that she has read at least one book about a Charlotte Mason education to ensure that she is familiar with the philosophy. <br /><br />Now for a few more logistics. Mostly, a CM-inspired co-op would not need to have classes segregated by age. Families could participate in the majority of these activities together in one group.&nbsp; All moms would be required to participate in the teaching and organizing of the co-op, whether it be as the director or as a teacher, assistant teacher, field trip organizer, or snack coordinator. If classes were held in the morning, everyone could bring a sack lunch and eat together at the end. For an afternoon co-op, ending with a snack and fellowship time would also serve the purpose of allowing the children to get to know each other and build friendships. <br /><br />Following are the results of my brainstorming session for co-op class ideas using a Charlotte Mason model: <br /><br />1. Circle Time - I really like the idea of beginning together as a group and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and singing a hymn together. Perhaps pre-designated children or families could then recite a poem, present something learned during the week at home, or prepare another type of “show and tell” to present during circle time. <br /><br />2. Art Appreciation - Picture study in a group could be just as simple as it is when completed at home. Charlotte’s desire was to familiarize her students with at least six works by the same artist in order for the children to become familiar with that artist’s style. The easiest way to acquire art prints for your group would be to use those that moms in the group already own and are willing to share. Copies of famous art works can be printed online and oversized art books can often be found in the “bargain books” section of large bookstores. For example, I once purchased an oversized book of art by Georgia O’Keefe for $12 at Barnes and Noble. For picture study, the teacher would show the art print being studied to the group and then the class would discuss (narrate) it. Also, the teacher might ask the students to write or draw their impressions of the picture (this is also narration). These simple steps could completely encompass a Charlotte Mason art appreciation class. Of course, it would be great to include skill-based art lessons in the class as well. As a person with no creative art skills, I love the idea of my children learning drawing or painting from a&nbsp; mom who possesses those skills. Although this obviously would not be a necessity, it would certainly be a nice addition. If an actual art curriculum is desired, look at <i>Artistic Pursuits</i> for a curriculum that includes the technical and expressive aspects of art as well as picture study. Visit <a href="http://www.artisticpursuits.com/index.html">http://www.artisticpursuits.com/index.html</a> for more information.<br /><br />3. Music Appreciation - A co-op music class could be taught in so many different and effective ways that it would be challenging to decide on only one. Charlotte Mason’s students studied classical music, so this should be an integral part of a CM music class. The music of the studied composer could be played for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of class while the children quietly drew in their sketchbooks or completed another quiet assignment. An appropriate selection from the wonderful <i>Classics for Kids</i> composer story CDs could also be played during this time. Following this, group singing with piano or guitar accompaniment would be enjoyable for the kids and allow them to learn hymns, folk songs, or patriotic songs together. Singing is an activity that is naturally enjoyed in a group setting. If those in the group desired more structured musical instruction, basic music theory or simple recorder lessons could easily be incorporated into the class.<br /><br />4. Literature discussion groups/book clubs - These groups could be divided by age or interest and could be quite informal. For preschool non-readers, it could be as simple as story time with a quality picture book or two. There could also be a group of younger beginning readers that would read picture books for their book club discussions. Additional groups would be designated that read chapter books and increasingly mature literature. Essentially, the kids in each group would read the same book at home and then discuss it together weekly in their literature group or book club. Remember, dialogue and discussion (i.e., narration) yield relationships and retention. An adult facilitator could be available to keep the kids on track and to ask open-ended questions when there was a lull in the conversation. Discussion questions are available online for many literature selections and published guides can be purchased inexpensively. One very important rule for these groups: NO TWADDLE ALLOWED!<br /><br />5. Memory work - If the families involved wanted to include memory work in the co-op, scripture, poetry, and the history timeline, among other topics, could be utilized. There are many music CDs available to help us memorize scripture or other materials more easily and it might be fun for a group of children to listen and memorize together. My personal goal for group memorization would be to&nbsp;prevent the children from experiencing any pressure from it. Such stress would squelch the desire to learn faster than almost anything, I think. To me, this is one huge difference between a CM education and a classical education. Followers of Charlotte Mason believe that education is “a science of relations” and that a large amount of rote memorization is not the factor that best maximizes learning potential. Also, in keeping with Charlotte’s philosophy, competitions and rewards should not be part of memorization. Memory work, especially in a co-op setting, should be low-key, non-competitive, and fun. That does not mean that memorization should not be utilized at all; Charlotte Mason’s own students certainly memorized information. But the amount and scope of memory work should be left at the discretion of the parents without putting unnecessary pressure on the kids.&nbsp;Charlotte Mason believed that education is a gentle art of learning.&nbsp; Memory work might have a place in a CM homeschool co-op, but it&nbsp;must be done in a gentle way.<br /><br />6. Shakespeare - There are so many Shakespeare enthusiasts in the world, and for good reason. Why not find out if there is a mom in your group who loves Shakespeare? If there is, ask if she is willing to tackle the job of teaching and inspiring the children to understand, enjoy, and even perform Shakespeare!<br /><br />7. Handicrafts - Charlotte Mason differentiated handicrafts from “futilities”, which would include the mindless cutting and gluing crafts that are often seen in classrooms and Sunday schools. Charlotte was advocating that children learn crafts that take time, patience, and concentration. Essentially, she wanted them to learn life skills. Examples of handicrafts would include sewing, knitting, beadwork, needlepoint, woodworking, and basket weaving, among many others. Most modern women do not possess a lot of “handicraft skills”, but often we each have skills in one or two areas. Moms in the co-op could take turns teaching the handicrafts that they know to the group, allowing the children to learn and experience a few throughout the year. Wouldn’t it be a great opportunity for moms to learn these skills right along with their children?<br /><br />8. Nature Study - I can think of two primary ways to effectively incorporate nature study into a CM homeschool co-op:<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">&nbsp;Physical co-op classes could occur three times per month, with the fourth week &nbsp;of each &nbsp;month set aside for nature walks and excursions. After all, Charlotte believed that children needed to regularly and actively experience nature. This would also be a nice&nbsp;opportunity for a once-a-month group picnic! Of course, alternate field trips or activities &nbsp;could be planned as back-ups for inclement weather.</span></li></ul><br /><ul><li><span style="font-family: inherit;">&nbsp;If actual nature excursions are not possible for your group, some homeschool &nbsp;resources may &nbsp;be adaptable for a group class. Check out Simply Charlotte Mason’s <i>106 &nbsp;Days of Creation Studies</i> (</span><a href="http://simplycharlottemason.com/books/106-days-creation"><span style="font-family: inherit;">http://simplycharlottemason.com/books/106-days-creation</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">-&nbsp;studies/) or Queen Homschool’s <i>Discovering Nature</i> <i>Series </i>(<a href="http://www.queenhomeschool.com/productpages/Discovering%20Nature%20Series/discoveringnatureseries2.html">http://www.queenhomeschool.com/productpages/Discovering%20Nature%20Series/discoveringnatureseries2.html</a>#&nbsp;Discovering</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">).</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: inherit;">9. Latin - Charlotte Mason felt that Latin is easier for children to learn than is English grammar. Indeed, she believed that Latin helped children to better understand English grammar. This is another example of a subject that might be beneficial for group study.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: inherit;">10. Hero Admiration - Charlotte Mason believed that education should encompass all that is good, noble, lovely, and worthy of admiration. While we all know that children crave heroes to look up to, most of us also know that the roles models provided by our culture (i.e., Hollywood) are not good, noble, lovely, and worthy of admiration. Instead, historical biographies and literature provide our children with examples of people who have demonstrated character worth looking up to. Our children can learn courage, for example, from many throughout history who have faced and overcome nearly impossible circumstances. Reading biographies about various historical figures, from Pocahontas to Harriet Tubman, has been very beneficial for my oldest daughter. I believe that such biographies have strengthened her sense of empathy toward others and have caused her to feel more grateful for her own life as well. But how can hero admiration be made into a “class” for a homeschool co-op? Here are a couple of ideas:</span><br /><div></div><ul><li>&nbsp;A simple book club that reads and discusses historical biographies.</li></ul><br /><div></div><ul><li>&nbsp;Youth With a Mission (YWAM) publishes numerous biographies of “Christian &nbsp;Heroes” and “Heroes in History”; unit study curriculum guides are available to &nbsp;accompany each of these books. These unit study guides contain ideas for some of the &nbsp;following activities and assignments related to each biography: Essay writing, creative &nbsp;writing, hands-on projects, critical thinking, devotional application, meaningful field &nbsp;trips, service projects, current events, life skills, project displays, oral presentations, and &nbsp;more! Unit studies typically have a vast array of ideas to pick and choose from. A unit &nbsp;study based on a Christian hero or historical figure would be a lot of fun for a group of &nbsp;children to complete together. For more information, go to <a href="http://www.ywampublishing.com/c-39-hero-biographies.aspx">http://www.ywampublishing.com/c-39-hero-biographies.aspx</a>.</li></ul><span style="font-family: inherit;">Although I have never seen or attended a Charlotte Mason homeschool co-op, I would truly love to be a member of one. Perhaps I will take the initiative to start one in my area some day! For now, I simply wanted to share my ideas with others who may be thinking about this very thing. I hope you have a blessed week!</span>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3990803641196919314.post-6141102880609003222011-05-15T20:21:00.000-07:002012-07-22T12:10:13.731-07:00Frugal Tip for Kid-Friendly Food<span lang="EN"></span><br /><div align="center"></div>This is going to be very basic, but sometimes I find myself needing to be reminded of the essentials. What are two foods that are notorious favorites for children? Yes, pizza and chicken nuggets! How often do we buy these favorites at restaurants, fast food windows, or in the frozen food section of the grocery store? The truth is, we can make our own pizza and chicken nuggets at home and save our weekly food budget from hitting the roof in the process. My kids actually like the pizza and chicken nuggets that I make at home better than they like them anywhere else. I do understand the convenience of fast food and pizza delivery on nights when the kids have soccer practice or some other activity that makes it difficult to cook dinner. I have been there and done that many times. It is better to plan ahead for such evenings, however, rather than to spontaneously eat out when we find ourselves unable to “get it together” in time for dinner. Eating out or purchasing convenience foods on impulse will destroy the food budget faster than almost anything else.&nbsp;It might be wise to use the slow cooker on days that are especially busy or to double a recipe each week to freeze for later use on busy nights (more on this in future posts). To save money by providing our children with home-cooked pizza and chicken nuggets, read on!<br /><div align="center"><br /><strong>Fried Chicken Fingers</strong></div><b></b><br /><div align="center"></div><div align="center"> </div>I have tried several different recipes and methods for making chicken nuggets or chicken fingers at home and this is my family's favorite. Deep frying has a bad reputation for obvious reasons and I don’t do it often. When I do, I use healthier oils such as olive oil and grape seed oil. My daughters like these chicken fingers better than those they have eaten anywhere else!<br /> <br />1 - 1 ½ pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts<br />Oil for frying<br />2 eggs<br />1/3 cup milk<br />2 cups flour (use unbleached white flour; whole wheat flour does not work well for this)<br />3 teaspoons salt<br />3 teaspoons black pepper<br />1 teaspoon poultry seasoning<br />1 teaspoon rubbed sage<br />1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)<br /> <br />Cut the chicken into “fingers” or “nuggets”, depending on your preference. Heat about 4 inches of cooking oil in an electric deep fryer or deep pot on the stove to 375 F (use a candy thermometer to gauge the temperature if you’re not using an electric fryer). <br /> <br />Beat the eggs and milk together in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a 9 x 9 baking dish or gallon-sized zipper bag, combine dry ingredients.<br /> <br />Dip the chicken pieces completely into the egg mixture and then transfer to the flour mixture. Roll each piece (or shake if using a zipper bag) to coat completely.<br /> <br />Carefully place each piece into the hot oil and fry for approximately 10 minutes until bubbling slows and chicken is golden-brown. (The number of chicken pieces you can cook at one time will depend on the size of your fryer or pot. Do not crowd the fryer).<br /> <br />Remove cooked chicken from oil and drain on paper towels.<br /><br /><strong>*It&nbsp;will be necessary to double the dry ingredient amounts if you use a larger amount of chicken.</strong><br /> <br /><b></b><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br /><div align="center"><strong>The World’s Easiest Pizza Crust</strong><br /> </div>I have attempted many pizza crust recipes and this is the one that my children like the best. Thankfully, it also happens to be the easiest one! Homemade pizza, using this crust recipe, is far from difficult. In fact, pizza is one of the “easy” meals that I save for busy days. Many children prefer cheese pizza or pepperoni pizza. If this is true at your house, be happy because you won’t need to cook or chop any additional toppings! <br /> <br />Preheat oven to 425 F. Dissolve 2 packets of yeast in 1 ½ cups very warm water. In a large bowl, stir 4 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning, and yeast mixture until blended. Knead a few times, cover bowl, and let dough rest for 5 minutes. Brush two 12-inch pizza pans or baking stones with olive oil and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon cornmeal. Pat or roll dough onto bottom of pizza pans, creating rims at edges. Pre-bake for 5 - 10 minutes, then remove, spread with pizza sauce, and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and desired toppings. Return to oven until cheese is melted and crust is golden.<br /><br /><strong>Tip:&nbsp; </strong>Although the above crust preparation is extremely easy, it will not result in a particularly crispy crust in most home ovens. For a crispier crust, preheat pizza pans or stones in the oven prior to greasing them. Roll out the dough on a separate, floured surface, then carefully transfer to the preheated pans.<br /><br />For an easy pizza sauce, combine one small can tomato sauce, one can tomato paste, 2 minced or crushed garlic cloves, a pinch of sugar, and Italian seasoning to taste (I like to use an Italian seasoning grinder for this).<br /><br /><strong>Enjoy these recipes and be inspired to make foods at home that you typically buy elsewhere.&nbsp;It&nbsp;will save you money, it will be&nbsp;healthier for your family,&nbsp;and your children will think you are a&nbsp;fabulous cook!&nbsp;&nbsp;Have a great week!</strong><br /><div align="center"></div><br /><div align="center"></div><div style="position:relative; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; background:white; width:424px;display:block;"><iframe name="shopstyle_search" width="424" height="244" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" src="http://widget.shopstyle.com/widget?pid=uid1121-7386761-93&fts=cookbooks&width=3&height=1&border=0&footer=0"></iframe><div style="position:absolute; left:0; bottom:2px; height:18px; line-height:12px; width:100%;"><div style="position:absolute; left:0; padding:2px 0 0 6px"><a href="http://www.shopstyle.com/browse?fts=cookbooks&utm_medium=widget&utm_source=Search+Widget&pid=uid1121-7386761-93" style="font:11px verdana,sans-serif;text-decoration:underline;border:0;background-color:transparent;color:#606060">cookbooks</a></div><div style="position:absolute; right:0; padding:3px 4px 3px 0"><a style="border:0" href="http://www.shopstyle.com?utm_medium=widget&utm_source=Search+Widget&pid=uid1121-7386761-93"><img src="http://resources.shopstyle.com/im/widget/ShopStyleLogo_powered.png" alt="ShopStyle" style="border:0;margin:0;padding:0"></img></a></div></div></div>Alyssa Burnetthttps://plus.google.com/102418466375617809218noreply@blogger.com0